2004 A2 1.4 petrol bought

[livars]

Having looked for A2 for sale and visiting this site among others the to get some background information on what to check on a A2. I ended up buying a 2004 A2 1.4 petrol with 206 tkms on the odo from an auction website about three weeks ago.

Usually I buy a car with the intention to keep it for about 3 years in the cheaper price range 0 - 4000€ . But an the other hand I can't stand having an unreliable car, so I try to do preventive work and repair things that are broken unless the cost is way too big or it is time to let the car go.

Service documents and receipts showed that it hadn't been totally neglected but the last timing belt change was at 160 tkms about 7 years ago. A document that it had failed the Finnish MOT test due to high O2 levels on revs was also shown.

Before picking up car and driving it home I made an appointment with a local garage to change the timing belt and to do some other basic things, such as an oil change and some others things that probably needed attention.

After the drive home the car was more or less stationary for about two weeks. During that time I connected a diagnostics computer to the car which found all control units except the ECU.

Many control units showed error codes but most of the them disappeared with a reset.

Entering the car for the first time i heard the central lock do an extra unlock sequence and based an it being an VAG product and what i have read I wasn't surprised that both rear doors showed unresetable errors on safety lock and that opening the drives door didn't turn on the indication that the door was open.

With the VCDS I found the ECU and a P0303 error code.

The garage changed:
- the timing belts, rolls, tensioners and water pump
- oil and filter
- gearbox oil
- airfilter
- sparkplugs and ignition coil on cylinder 3
- brake fluid
- H7 bulb
- engine light reset

Cost for parts and work done nearly 1000€. Expensive or not, I can't really say but I think the cost was acceptable in regards to what was done.

The next day I went for a MOT test, everything went smoothly until the car was started again after the inspection of suspension front and rear. The technician started the car and the engine light started flashing. I could also hear that the engine didn't sound like it did previously. So the MOT was failed with a P0303 error code.

Drove home, searched this forum and others for ideas. Drove 20 kms to work and back, went to do some shopping in the evening to a store 0,5 kms away. When I returned to the car and started it the engine light was off and has been since for nearly 1000 kms.

The question is, what caused it?

Having now driven the car over 1000 kms the car drives fine and without too many disturbing sounds

There is a list of things that need attention:
- rear door locks
- drivers doors lock (LHD)
- fuel flap remote opening, caused by drivers door?
- voltage fluctuations, headlights dimming, heater blower fan speed variations.
- HVAC error codes, caused by fluctuating voltage?
- windscreen washer nozzles clogged
+ ???

Nearly all of those point mentioned above have either been solved or discussed on this forum. This is an active forum and I hope that it will stay so in the future.

 

[Robin_Cox]

Welcome!
I can see a long list of work that was done but no lambda (pre-catalyst). On our 1.4i I've just resolved some long-term air / fuel mixture ratio error codes that caused all manner of lights to be turned on at times, usually when my partner was driving the car - by replacing the (non-oem) lambda with an NGK/NTK original. Huge step forward.

Does the rev counter fluctuate when the car is on the idle? This may indicate mild lambda / mixture issues (I also replaced the throttle body, broken EGR, spark plugs and leads, coil etc. 3 years ago as these were all in poor condition and fitted a set of cleaned and calibrated injectors)

Secondly, re voltage issues - can you clean the starter motor earth. Then I would ask what condition is the battery and alternator in - it is not beyond possibility that there is still an original VARTA battery with an 8Z0 code present in the boot underfloor, which could be dying. The 1.4 uses the smallest alternator of the A2 family and I have found with ours that in winter time, with lights, wipers, rear defrost etc. all active, the headlights dim noticeably when steering away from a standstill after reversing off the drive.

 

[livars]

Checked the battery voltage, it was 12V with the engine off and temperature was below 0° C. Usually when the temperature drops and battery is not good you hear the starter sound sluggish but now not really so much.

And yes, the battery had the sticker with 8Z0 code. So it was the original one 18 years old, not bad.

But now it's replaced. Have driven with the new battery for over a week now, no engine light and MOT passed. With the new battery the starter sounds better but the difference was surprisingly small.

 

[BearMcPear]

Checked the battery voltage, it was 12V with the engine off and temperature was below 0° C. Usually when the temperature drops and battery is not good you hear the starter sound sluggish but now not really so much.

And yes, the battery had the sticker with 8Z0 code. So it was the original one 18 years old, not bad.

But now it's replaced. Have driven with the new battery for over a week now, no engine light and MOT passed. With the new battery the starter sounds better but the difference was surprisingly small.

Have almost the same car as you (241 tkm) and also live in Finland. An 18 year old battery in Finnish winters would be crazy impressive.
12V with nothing on sounds low to me, but I have to admit I don't know what a normal voltage would be at low temperatures. The headlights dimming sound like a clear indicator of low voltage to me and that can cause all sorts of errors to pop up. Hope that replacing the battery was all it took, but issues with the fuel flap/door locks/fan speed aren't too uncommon. Mine has fan speed fluctuation, but from reading up on it it's a major hassle to fix so I've decided to just live with it.

Aside from that, a nearly-free and quite easy thing to do is to clean out the throttle body and EGR port right underneath it. That's often neglected and will make the engine run better.