Hi all,
I am new to these forums, so please bear with me. I had an interesting experience yesterday with my moms 2003 Audi Allroad 2.7T. It has 88,500 miles on it. We drove to Portland yesterday morning, and everything was fine. Then, we were leaving Portland yesterday afternoon, and i noticed that the coolant temperature gauge was actually going down, and we were not coasting, that car was working, hard. So, it kept going down until it got to Cold, and then it just stayed around there. The oil temp was normal. So we get on the highway, and it is still doing the same thing. It would go down as we went uphill, and then the temperature would go up as we went downhill. We stopped in Sandy (about 45 minutes from Portland) and I opened up the hood and the engine felt unusually hot. Then, when I started it up again, the coolant temperature gauge went back up to normal operating temperature, and then it went down, and down. So later, when we were up around Mt. Hood, we were constantly climbing hills, and I noticed that the Allroad just didn't have the kind of GO that it usually has at highway speeds. It is an automatic, so it has the 5 speed, and because of this, the engine sits in the high-2000 RPM range when at 60 MPH. So, usually you can just put your foot down, even a little bit, and it just takes off. Not this time. When we were climbing those hills, I put my foot down, and it hesitated, and then would slowly accelerate. So we get to Madras, which is about 45 minutes out of Bend (where we live) and we stop for dinner. So, the car was able to cool down substantially, and when we got back in, the coolant temperature gauge was working, and when we were at highway speeds, we still had a few hills to climb, and I could just put my foot down and go, it was much better than before.

Now, do you think that the turbos were not functioning properly earlier, because it seemed very down on power, like we were missing a cylinder or something.

This guy had a similar situation. Read the fourth post.

I should add that my mom is a hard driver. She DOES NOT do the warm up/cool down procedures for the turbo, and she pushes that thing hard. Should we be concerned about the turbos possibly going out?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

 

To read the seventh post.

 

the turbos usually don't go out without some kind of warning. most likely you have a vacuum leak and a bad coolant temperature sensor.

take it somewhere and get it scanned. see if there are any DTCs. report back.

 

Sounds like your coolant levels are low, causing a low temp reading on the guage while you are actually overheating the engine. Overheating would cause pre-ignition, so the motor would then "depower" itself by reducing the timing in order to protect itself.

Anyway, that's my guess.




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There isn't a possibility that we ruined the engine by driving it with low coolant? It seems okay...

 

So the coolant level looks fine. Could there be some sort of blockage?