Stevey Y

Hi the best place to look would be in your owners book or online. Steve.

The only other thing I can think of is the low pressure EGR valve butterfly is clogged and may be slightly open, they are monitored but wont throw a code unless stuck completely, did you check the pipes were clear before fitting new sensors.

Hi black smoke is due to over fuelling, the high MAF reading is due to the ECU trying to combat the extra fuel with more air, so you either have a leaking injector or the car has been remapped at some point. Steve.

Hi if you tape over it the thing will work all the time as it works on opacity so the more its blocked the harder it works, this is quite a common problem on A4/A6 2012 up and is usually down to a cruddy control stalk on the steering wheel which is why there are so many second hand units for sale, you have to replace the whole unit which is a bit of a mission especially when you replace it as if you have not placed the squib ring in dead centre the steering goes bananas, try cleaning it with contact cleaner first. Steve.

Hi I would suspect an air leak the other side of the MAF, also check the MAP sensor and the DPF sensor I had the same on my car and ended up changing both MAP and DPF sensors to cure this as the EGR was staying open when and allowing gas recirculation when you were trying to clog it in higher gears when it needs the maximum amount of fresh air, what diagnostic reader are you using as anything other than VCDS/OBD Eleven wont necessarily flag any codes, before I bought new sensors I had already changed the EGR valve which was pretty much mint because of the design it only gets hot exhaust gas and no recycled crankcase gas because that gets fed in further down the stream only to discover it might be a blocked pipe to the MAP/EGR sensors, no blockages so it had to be the sensors, don't ask why because they all communicate with each other and I never found out what wasn't working, took me ages playing chase the ace, all part of the wonderful Ultra technology and a very complex engine management software. Steve.

Hi Steve yes indeed lipsticks are available on eBay my daughter buys them a lot. Steve.

Hi if you take the bar off and run the holes through with an oversize drill bit the two parts should come apart as the top and bottom plates are held together around the bolt holes, but before doing this measure the roll bar itself with a vernier caliper to see which size bush you need as there are three different sizes, also pay attention to the other shape of the new bush so its the same, they are going to be murder to fit but do not lubricate the inner part of the bush and use washing up liquid on the outer part, once on the bar the new bushes can be coaxed into the upper part of the metal mounting using a piece of wood either side and a large G clamp this should get it far enough in so when you put the base plate on bolting it up should pull it in the rest of the way, unless you have the facilities to grind off the old captive nuts you will need longer bolts and new nuts. Steve.

Hi yes it will remove the light as the map fools it into thinking the adblu tank is always full, the cars will run perfectly well without it just don't get talked into having the EGR and DPF deleted at the same time as that will definitely cause problems, have you tried the tank level reset as this can be done with VCDS or OBD Eleven and often sorts the problem. Steve.

Hi Cliff how long has this been under discussion and for the benefit of anyone who wants to know, since 2007 most of the major manufacturers installed some sort of battery energy monitor, Fords use a battery counter system as do Vauxhall, Audi and Mercedes use a monitor system which is attached to the earth lead, both systems need reseting when a new battery is installed this informs the ECU and the Alternator to learn new values about charging, what is painfully clear having studied the brand of this battery it comes from no definitive source, even the company website only mentions the batteries are developed by them and their partners who are their partners are is anyones guess, basically its a cheap range of European parts that are being flooded in from Europe a bit like the NAPA parts from America, from what I can gather EUROREPAR have been going for twenty years if you lodge that against Bosch and Yuasa who have well over a Hundred years between them you can see where your extra money goes, I have recently had to change the battery on my wife's Alfa which does about fifteen hundred miles a year the last Yuasa unit has lasted five years so I bought a new Yuasa which has a four year guarantee, so yes you are right the battery probably is defective. Steve.

Hi its no good playing chase the ace with fitting random parts in the hope of curing a problem you need a diagnostic scan to pinpoint the problem. Steve.

Hi the car runs better during a regen as the EGR is shut off [no exhaust gas] they all do, I would recommend a full diagnostic scan before condemning anything. Steve.

Hi quite possibly the answer to this is yes, especially if the car has had no prior updates during your ownership as the dealers wont do them automatically, so you have to ask and they have to charge, the updates are normally for the first four years, these are to counter known problems that the dealers have found during service, after four years they don't do anymore updates as they say they have covered most upcoming faults, my niece has had a MINI 1from new which started to run badly last summer, the car was bought new in 2010 and had never had an update so when we took it to a BMW specialist I know he said yeah no probs the update will take ten minuets, forty five minuets later it was still down loading, but to be fair it went like a rocket after. Steve.

Hi might be worth getting in to dialogue with OBD Eleven and ask them if their system will deactivate the system as your vehicle is SFD protected and to date they are the only system to have access to the tokens to perform such functions, you wont have problems with insurance as these things cause more damage than they prevent and I suspect in the future they may even load your policy if you have it. Steve.

Hi it wont damage the engine, its most likely the oil sensor in the sump going sideways they are a rubbish design which is doomed to fail, I service my own car and had the same message so I drained out a litre of oil and it was still the same message so I had to change the sensor, these sensors are very twitchy even after opening the bonnet you have to drive at least two cycles [3-4 miles] before you can check it again. Steve.

Hi sorry Cliff I stand corrected.

Hi the one with only one connection is for the low pressure EGR, the sensor with two pipes is the DPF sensor they are both the same part number but the EGR sensor on the low pressure side uses barometric pressure from the open side to make its calculations, replacing both is not a bad shout but they will both need adapting, I would still be interested in your soot/ash loadings. Steve.

Hi the multi plug for the head unit always has a supply normally about 2amps this maintains the memory functions within the unit otherwise when you power it up the settings need to be altered. Steve.

Hi did you readapt the O2 sensor and the DPF after it was cleaned as it has to learn its new soot/ash levels from empty, if so and it still keeps doing it it may well be the DPF pressure sensor, thats the one with two pipes that measures the gas flow pressure before and after the DPF if its not performing as it should it allows the DPF to fill up to far before trying to initiate a regen, check your soot levels as they should not exceed 30 grams. Steve.

Hi I wish you luck with the warranty, its a hell of a job and requires significant stripping down as well as elastic arms and fingers to get it out, the easiest way is remove the front end and drag it out with the cat attached, I tried cleaning it in situ with every chemical known to man but ultimately it always needed replacing. Steve.

Hi looks like a good part as a lot of refurbished parts suffer poor finish and make you wonder, this looks like they have really gone to town on the refurb, these guys are definitely going to make a name for themselves, let us know how it performs. Steve.

Hi Jim what diagnostic platform are you using?, try deleting the two codes for the reductant and see if they come back, the code I would be more alarmed about is p2002 thats a nasty one, its not that the DPF is blocked, thats still working, no its the low pressure EGR cooler, this is well documented on this forum and normally requires replacement I got through at least three of them in the time I owned my A6, the engines are common to the A4/A6 and due to the Ultra technology share the same emissions problems, the design is basically flawed as it takes gas for the DPF and burns it again problem is as it cools the gas through the cooler tubes the adblue crystals become solid again and block the tubes and the valve mounted on the cooler filling them with a slimy white mess, adblue wont harm paintwork etc but when it comes in to contact with basic steel it will corrode it and rot the tubes out and then you end up with adblue crystals in the expansion tank and causing a white film on the tailpipes, if you do search there is ton of info on here with pictures. Steve.

Hi good shout, pictures always make the imagined part more realistic and potentially more attractive to people who are chasing the same problem. Steve.

Hi the only way you will get to the bottom of this is to have the car scanned for faults, its the only way to pin down what is going on. Steve.

Hi I hate to tell you this but transmission fluid does get very hot despite not being part of the combustion process, its called kinetic friction the base material is the same as engine oil but is heavily refined to a point where its thinner and has more of a propensity towards a hydraulic state then additives are employed to enhance the hydraulic properties as well as the rapid cooling properties of the fluid, after a suitable period or milage the additives break down and via the heat from the gear meshing and being pressurised through small detent valves the fluid looses its viscosity and also changes colour, it has nothing to do with abusers driving the car to hard, its all to do with ambient temperatures over a given time or milage, do you think that would be a selling point in a dealers, sorry sir you can't drive this 400hp flying machine fast for any length of time because you might wear the gearbox fluid out. Engine oil is a completely different product although it comes from the same base product its additives are designed in such a way to protect internal components and the additives involved allow it to do this at a much higher thermal grade whilst absorbing the moisture from the combustion process along with the carbon within that water, sorry but its a one way street, the engine wont burn sump oil unless your oil rings are knackered in which case it will kill your catalytic converter in record time as engine oil when exposed to super heat will crack and revert back to hard carbon unless its fully synthetic in which case it just coats the cat core in a slime that totally negates the function of the precious metals such as palladium which convert the harmful gases in the exhaust stream.

Hi Andy thank you for the update it gives the forum value and continuity. Steve.