Hi all, Rob, newbie here.
My wife's A3 began to show the glowplug heater light on a drive home from Oban, here in the Highlands. The car then appeared to go into 'limp mode'.
She stopped and restarted the car, as necessary, in order to make it home.
Most of her journeys are short, work and/or about town so I guess it has never gone into a 'regeneration'...though to be fair, I/we didn't actually know to do that and unlike new models, the 2013 doesn't advise higher speed runs.
After googling like mad, I suspected the DPF and so used a well know spray through the sensor inlet. Lots of smoke upon starting and hoped that would cure it.
A run after wards as directed on spray and youtube instructions seemed to go okay until glow plug light began flashing again on way home.
I managed to get it onto a diagnostic machine in a friendly local garage and readings came up EGR related faults. Much sucking of teeth from mechanice...."It's the 1.6 tdi, isn't it? Ohhh. Difficult".
Well, I've googled the hell out of it and yes, it's right at the back of the engine, under the turbo and I think removal is beyond my basic mechanical skill set and tools (I drive Land Rovers and so am used to fixing stuff). Also, we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere so can't just pop into the big name suppliers/stores.....online takes a wee bit longer.
I bought a Holts EGR aerosol cleaner, 500ml, and following instructions (again) sprayed it into intake hose, after the MAF.
A question....doesn't this just blow it into the turbo, not the egr? Bottom line...It didn't work. Thoughts?
I've seen a video of youtube of a mechanic spraying what appears to be a 5lt container of DPF flushing cleaner into the air intake hose of one of their company vans to clear EGR and DPF and apparently, it works, light/faults gone, albeit for a year at a time. Thoughts?
I've also seen one guy spraying Mr Muscle oven cleaner into the air intake, supposedly cleaning the egr, turbo, dpf and all associated pipework. Thoughts...besides Oh Er.
I have read about this being used on the turbo vanes in A4's but again, how to get it into the EGR and not everywhere else?
All and any advice is very welcome and please feel free to give opinions on the last couple of points.....if it was just a question of only doing possible harm to an all ready malfunctioning valve, I'd be trying it now but lack of knowledge of the potential for damaging other parts in the exhaust system is holding me back.
As I'm hovering around retirement age and a low earner, the prospect of laying out between six and eight hundred pounds to get this fixed is stunning. Not even sure we can afford to get it fixed.
Any one near the Fort William area with a code reader and more knowledge than me (not hard) who'd be happy to swap tea and/or beer tokens for their help and input?
Hope everyone keeping safe in these uncertain times,
Cheers
Rob