Starting problems

Patskf

Member
Hello A2 friends. I am a new owner of a 1.6 FSI and I am thrilled with this wonderful little car. So well build and stylish. I absolutely love it. Except some minor (let’s go with minor) problems: I bought the car a month ago with 90 thousand Km in a really good shape. Except the engine light being always on (orange) the most problematic behavior of my A2 is that sometimes it will not start. It never happens when the motor is cold. Usually after a 10-15 minutes stop the engine is just refusing to start. After around 10 more minutes of trying it starts reluctantly trying to maintain a proper idle run. All this doesn’t happen regularly but as you can imagine the situation creates some insecurity and makes me nervous every time I try to start the car.
I use hi grade gasoline. And I have established that it is not an imobilizer issue. Car is well serviced with new oil and spark plugs. Any help would be so much appreciated. Thanks for your time.
 
scan it, post the errors.

You're 100% sure the spark plugs are the correct type?

- Bret
Hi Bret thanks for the suggestion. I haven’t mention in my post that I have already scanned several times and the only issue showing up is the Nox sensor. Spark plugs are the recommenced ones according to my mechanic.
 
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Try running some injector cleaner through the system as it will help reduce any carbon. You really do need to have a full VCDS scan done on the car to expose any error codes that have a meaningful description.
 
Try running some injector cleaner through the system as it will help reduce any carbon. You really do need to have a full VCDS scan done on the car to expose any error codes that have a meaningful description.
Will do thanks so much!
 
Am I the only one thinking it could be coolant temperature sensor? This is the green 4-pin one at the front of the thermostat housing. Maybe the car thinks the engine is cold so it is supplying more fuel and “flooding it” when doing a hot start. This won’t show an error unless the it is outside normal operating limits. Failing thermistors inside the coolant temperature sensor can be intermittent due to cracking and thermal expansion.


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If you could find out the temperature using the Measurement Blocks in VCDS before every hot start with the ignition on, i.e. before cranking when hot, you should be able to see if the ECU is getting approximately the right coolant temperature.


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Exactly measure the temperature where you know there is a problem starting. Watch the temp reading as you crank it may become erratic or low. Yes the log by default is stored within the logs folder in VCDS but can be dropped down to an external drive or even emailed.
 
Exactly measure the temperature where you know there is a problem starting. Watch the temp reading as you crank it may become erratic or low. Yes the log by default is stored within the logs folder in VCDS but can be dropped down to an external drive or even emailed.
Or, when scan is complete, click "Copy" button on VCDS, open MS Notepad and paste the results into it, save as a .txt file. Save it anywhere you like, including to a USB thumb drive.
Mac.
 
If you could find out the temperature using the Measurement Blocks in VCDS before every hot start with the ignition on, i.e. before cranking when hot, you should be able to see if the ECU is getting approximately the right coolant temperature.


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This is great help BiggDogg I’ll have it in mind! Thanks.
 
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