Stevey Y

Hi NO as previously posted if the water jacket on the EGR cooler is perforated it normally pressurises the water system with exhaust gas, no oil involved, if you can post a description of what the oil in the water looks like, emulsified= white sludge or just plain black that would be very helpful. Steve.

Hi possibly an injector seal check round the injectors for oily tar like crud. Steve.

Thats what I love about this country there are some very clever people who always find a way round dealership excessive greed. Steve.

Hi so far, one humidity sensor under mirror Brand new from Audi £165.00, bought on eBay £65.00, air quality sensor I cleaned in alcohol and has been working fine ever since, headlight range control module, again cleaned contacts with alcohol works perfectly, one oxygen sensor which failed at 80k Audi wanted £190.00 for it so I bought the same sensor, again from eBay, genuine Bosch same O.E. for £69.00. The car has been brilliant, I use it as a cab so it has a hard life so the rest of it has been brakes and service items. BTW there are some amazing deals on Bosch filters on eBay so I have had a bit of a blitz on it as I have to service the car soon, Bosch air filter £13.00, Bosch oil filter £9.00, if you have your part numbers for your vehicle you can save a fortune on good quality parts. Steve

Hi I am pretty sure they do it on eBay and a multitude of other internet sites, I have used my friends OBD Eleven its good but I have VCDSso there is no point in buying it especially after the year I just had, taxi driver. Steve.

Hi for what it costs its well worth the money as you can do a certain amount of part adaptations as well as read faults, there are other what claim to be dedicated software platforms that are far more expensive and don't have half the capabilities of OBD Eleven if you want to go to the far side buy VCDS but it is far more expensive. Steve.

Hi coolant leaks are fairly easy to spot as the coolant colouring leaves a red stain which turns brown if it hits anything hot. Steve.

Hi, most modern cars are fitted with a rev limiter these days to stop people from sitting in neutral and revving it right up, with regard to the leak possibility if you arm yourself with a cleaned household spray bottle half fill it with water and a good squirt of washing up liquid, shake it so there are plenty of bubbles then start engine from cold and spray the bubbles on the exhaust joints in the engine bay DPF CAT etc you will soon see if there are any leaks as it blows the foam away and there is no way the solution you use can catch light. Sometimes exhaust joints blow minimally without any sound. Steve.

Hi they can be replaced, if you go on to youtube there is a video about how to do it, its a bit intensive and involves taking the unit out and heating the edge whilst cutting the sealant away I did it on another car a while ago I think from memory the replacement glass was about £40 plus another twenty for the sealant but even with the time spent about eight hours it still worked out cheaper than a new headlight, the lenses are sold on the internet by loads of companies

Hi thinking about what your friend said, it could well be a blocked or collapsed crankcase breather valve which would cause the sump to pressurise and blow oil past the rings. Steve.

Hi sorry I cant help with that one, the only way to diagnose most problems is to plug in and read the codes have you any access to diagnostic equipment, a lot of people use OBD Eleven which is cheap to purchase and very accurate and can be run on your phone, if other than the light the car ran ok it would not be a major fault. Steve.

Hi could be the EGR if its water cooled they can sometimes leak but that would manifest itself as exhaust gas pressurising the water system, is it a lot of oil or are we talking small globules of emulsified oil as long as the water jacket is not full of it along with the expansion tank you are ok just live with it and monitor the presence of the oil, the only other thing is a perforation in the oil galleries in the block and if that was the case the water would be in the sump oil as well. Steve.

Hi, the 5w-40 is better at protecting the engine at higher temperatures if you do a lot of motorway driving or when the summer heat exceeds the mid twenties, 5w and 10w oils have virtually the same cold flow characteristics when starting the 30-40 end is where they are different i.e 30 is good up to 30 degrees ambient temp whereas the 40 is good up to 50 degrees ambient temp. As long as its synthetic I won't matter. Steve.

Hi if you get the compression checked and that is ok chances are it is probably the timing chain if its not belt driven, apart from that the other thing could be worn cam followers, either of the above are cheaper than a rebuild. Steve.

Hi the remap won't cause oil in the water, being as you have just about changed anything that leaks I rather suspect the garage involved has not spent a lot of time flushing the water system, I did a vauxhall Astra oil cooler for my neighbour last year during the lockdown and it took longer to flush the system than it did to do the cooler, despite our best efforts he still gets the odd bit of mayonnaise in the expansion tank but the car runs fine and has been down to North Devon and back a couple of times with no problems. Steve.

Hi Thomas, clearing the boot is a good shout to start with, if that won't work it has to be a bush I would try the rear roll bar bushes first give em a squirt of silicon spray and see if that cures it if not just work your way around every link i.e. top control arm bushes then lower until the noise stops then you will have the culprit as it was the last item you sprayed. Steve.

Hi good skills as it is easier to add oil than try to get it back out, the MMI oil level indicator is ok but I don't really trust it, so like so many others I am trying to source a Dipstick to put in the blanked off bit, in saying that the pre sixteen Audi models with the bigger engines seem to be easier to get in the UK and cheaper, the only Dipsticks I can find for my 2.0 CNHA engine are in America and with the postage the same as the item £40 its a bit steep for a spring steel rod with a plastic end. Steve.

Try eBay there are loads, just don't buy the ones that are 100w or got that big cooling fan on the back as they are to long and you won't get the back cover on what you need is H7 can bus error free 55w cob led, put some in my daughters Mito last year and with a 6000k rating they are far better, just make sure you get the bulbs that fit the standard connector. Steve

Hi no worries, my missus had an old Alfa 147 which uses a similar front suspension system and they are famous for this the only problem is that Alfa decided it was a good idea to use captive bushes on the roll bar which meant you had to buy the whole bar assembly with the new bushes on it, not cheap and then I had the glorious task of dropping the exhaust and subframe rear whilst supporting the engine on a small trolly jack, what Prawn thought that lot up god only knows, at least on the Audis like most other cars you can just change the roll bar bushes. Steve.

Hi try the rack ends if you can get an assistant to wiggle the steering slightly from left to right whilst you hold the rack end whilst the car is on the floor [not easy I grant you] you might feel the noise you describe, the rack ends have what is like a ball joint on the inner end and the bearing surface is a nylon cup which when worn produces the noise you describe. Steve.

Hi, it is not the suspension top mounts as they have no physical movement or bearing they have a rubber cushion on the top to stop it all from banging up and down when traversing bumps or potholes the suspension strut has no movement other than up or down which is regulated by the strut unit and spring, the actual movement of the hub is regulated by the upper and lower steering arms which perform an arc with the steering knuckle around the static shock absorber assembly. The symptoms you describe when parking sound more like worn anti roll bar bushes and drop links if you consider that the bushes become hard and worn over time they also lose their ability to grip the roll bar, the roll bar is basically a torsion bar that is gripped in place with brackets and bushes very tightly so that when the bar twists the bar makes a creaking noise because the rubber bush is no longer flexing minimally with the moving bar whilst gripping and the creaking is the bar moving inside the bush, if your drop links are worn rather than regulating the movement of the bar they just let it move freely which gives you the noise, if you look under the car when the steering is turned the ends of the bar move in different directions. The reason there is no noise when driving is that there is less resistance against the roll bar as the wheels are moving a lot faster than when static and friction is at its highest from the tyre against the road, arm yourself with a can of silicone spray and soak the roll bar bushes whilst an assistant works the steering, the reason there is no noise when jacked up is because the roll bar is hanging down universally both sides so there is no reason for the roll bar to twist as both wheels have no natural resistance to overcome from the weight of the engine and body when at normal ride height. This problem is endemic of this kind of suspension set up as conventional Macpherson strut set ups have a roller bearing which enables the strut to turn with the steering knuckle which presents less strain on the roll bar when it twists, the downside is that the steering is less precise and the handling is less sharp, try the silicone trick and if that cures it the bushes and drop links are fairly cheap Steve.

Hi Clive the Hydrogen technology is not as far away as you think, Ford had a fleet of Focus police cars on trial with Leicester constabulary ten years ago the police raved about the performance and economy but the only fly in the ointment was yet again the E.U. who were dead against type approval being issued for a hundred petty reasons, so Ford scrapped the project, so now years later there is heavy investment on the stock market in the companies who are producing this technology. as for government policies has everyone forgotten the Ultimate Idiot Tony Blair telling everyone to go buy a diesel as its better for the environment, then less than ten years later all diesel drivers were public enemy number one and since then diesel fuel has always commanded a higher price because according to the government they are more polluting than petrol, they forgot to tell us how much more CO2 the petrol engine produces, in the final analysis its all to do with revenue from tax where do you think they will get the ninety million a year they collect from the motorist fossil fuel purchases when its no longer available, my bet is the electric to charge your car will be about four pounds a kilowatt, how many times are we going to be dragged with our wallets one way then another, I subscribe to my dads theory that you can always tell when a politician is lying, their lips move. Regards Steve.

Hi I can agree with Thomas about OBD ELEVEN as the alternatives are somewhat more expensive unless you have a computer whiz in the family who can get a cracked version of VCDS off of the internet with a cheap Hex cable off of eBay. Steve.

Hi Michelle, sorry about the ECU fault it was the last item I would have thought of, but on a positive note if the ECU is still talking to the diagnostics it a going proposition and should be repairable there are companies all over the UK that specialise in this type of repair and they are normally very successful in repairing these units I use one in Kent and they have saved me a fortune over the years, please let me know how you end up. Regards Steve.

Hi why is everyone with green credentials hell bent on buying a golf buggy, observe the following, Battery life uncertain, disposal of old batteries a mystery,Lithium is highly toxic even the American fire brigade had to contact Tesla who were to say the least vague about how to deal with battery casing leaks, and in the final analysis I cant envisage anyone rushing out to buy a ten year old electric car. One of the Hackney proprietors on our circuit bought a Kia Niro brand new he was always waxing lyrical about how good they are until he tried to trade it in for another KIA hybrid, oh what a surprise with only 45k on the clock the dealers flat out refused to entertain it as they could not be sure of how much life was left in the battery, then they made him an offer, pay four grand for a new battery and two grand for the old ones disposal, then they said he could trade it in, thats real faith in your product. Driving around today subject to this conversation I was playing spot the full electric car, I only saw two a Nissan Leaf and a seventeen plate Tesla, where I live is definitely Audi country the place is saturated in brand new and almost brand new Q3-4-7 and generous sparkling of A4-6 Avants mostly diesel, I think personally electric cars are for people who don't know a lot about cars mechanically and have been sucked in by the hype without having studied the peripheral problems of getting rid of the redundant technology and its effects at least with what we drive now we know all about it, having looked at it logically I think the future is Hydrogen fuel cell or bio ethanol technology. PS the KIA was only two years old when the above tried for a trade in. Steve.