I recently purchased an 01 a4 1.8t. The check engine light came on, literally the day I drove it home. Code is cam position sensor. The dealership I bought it from replaced the sensor. Got the car back and the Light came on again! Brought it back to dealership. They claim they replaced it again. The light is still on. Any ideas? I just want it off so I can try and sell the car. It's been nothing but headaches.Every now and then it cranks and cranks before it finally starts.I had to get a whole new heater core, coolant tank, section of exhaust, blower motor, and it still has problems. Seemed fine when I test drove it. lol Any ideas to this electrical problem?

 

If it keeps throwing cam sensor faults and cranks a lot before it starts it probably has something to do with the cam sensor. Now if they replaced the sensor twice that would lead me to believe there is a short or open wire in the circuit to the ECM. Take it back to the dealer again and tell them to diagnose it correctly this time because its not the sensor thats throwing the fault. They can find the problem, they are just being lazy. You should NOT have to pay for it, if they try to charge you report them to audi of north america.

 

I am not dealing with this dealership anymore. They are not an Audi dealership but have a "Part-time" audi mechanic that works for them. He sucks though. Everytime I take my car there something else is broke when I get it back. Sofar they have fixed everything I listed for free including the heater core, but I don't want to bring it back there. Some of the things when i gotmy car back: Missing screw for engine cover, found screwdriver in engine bay, underneath car has large dent from floor jack, and undercoating scrapped off, broken blower motor and radio didn't work. I have had my car back there about 5 times in the last month! I don't trust him at all. I was wondering if there is anything I could do myself. If not should I take it to a genuine audi dealership? Are there other garages that could do it cheaper? Is ok to be driving it? Thanks for the info I really appreciate it!

 

Its ok to drive it as long as you can get it started LOL.
You would need a custom made pin out box and an ohm meter to test the wiring between the ECM and sensor. Its not something anyone can just do without some experience in electronics. Im sure there is a good euro repair shop somewhere around your location that can figure it out, the simplest things cause the most extreme problems.

 

get the fault code that will tell the problem ( them just saying its the cam sensor could be a scam on the warranty ) as for the damage to the floor that's very poor workmanship and a costly repair so check who does the warranty and take it to another garage ( your not committed to take it to them for warranty work )

edit: you could get the other garage to bill them for the floor damage

 

It's not a factory warranty. It's through the dealership.The carhas roughly 80k miles. They havnt actually claimed anything for warranty. Just fixed problems for free. (causing more in the process). I am actually an electrician. I have ohmeter. How would I find what the correct resistance/voltage is for sensor and wire? I took car to autozone the day it came on just to see what it was. It's for sure the cam position sensor. Besides this I love the car! It handles well, drives great! Looks nice. I don't want to be fixing this car all the time though. The car is completely stock except for k&n filter. I am the second owner. I don't race/beat on the car. I change my oil every 3500 miles with royal purple synthetic oil. How many miles can I expect to get out of the car? The garage also told me timing belt and tensioner was changed. I think they are BS-ing me. Any way to tell. I looked at the timing belt. It's an AUDI belt. IS there anyway to tell if it's been changed?

 

I'm going to throw this out there because I'm a idiot and I don't know if this would cause more problems than are happening

They replaced the Timing belt and everything with it - the timing is off by one knotch on the belt and thats whats wrong - the sensor is actually working and not the problem.????

 

#

[IMG]local://upfiles/12092/1B4278615EAE4C1C9C2996D764A0B7FF.jpg[/IMG]

 

Thanks for the specs techbod. I will try test tomorrow and see what I come up with. also how would i know if timing belt was done?

 

very good point there