also, I do not remember if i have had this problem as I have never had this cold of weather outside, hehe... also I have only owned the car for around 1 winter now.

 

well ya its newer man...

 

what does your temp gague say? if your temp gague says that the car is at a normal operating temp then your thermostat is fine. if you car is running cold, you need a new one.

if its not the thermostat its probably an issue with the heater core. probably a pump or solenoind problem i would guess. (actually, if your heater core runs off of the water pump, then obviously its not that.)

 

Hmmm. Interesting. The main thing I see here is that it blows cold only when stopped. How your heater core can become cold so quickly puzzles me. Your engine would not cool to the point where your coolant going through the heater core is cold. I can only surmise that if there is a valve that opens and closes to let warm coolant into your heater core, it is that valve that is malfunctioning. I don't know the particulars of the Audi climate control system, but I would agree that there is a problem with your heating core or one of its components. Or some electrical/computer glitch that is telling the aformentioned valve to open and close when it isn't supposed to. Or you are low on coolant and there is enough to flow though the motor and the heater core when driving, but not enough to keep warm coolant in the heater core when stopped.

I am just talking out of my a$$, but maybe there is a kernal of truth in there somewhere...

 

I think its the water pump, I had this EXACT problem on my 90 300zx last year AND my 93 ford probe this year, and it was the water pump going. The problem was it wasnt circulating the hot coolent through the heater core properly, I guess it cycles through the engine first but if the pressure is not high enough then it wont make it up to the heater core. When your engine is reving higher, the pump is spinning faster and compensating for the low pressure. The other problem this caused was when the ice cold heater core was hit with the piping hot coolant over and over again, over the corse of a few months it ended up cracking the heater core on the 300zx, it just started on the probe a few weeks before I got the Audi so I havent driven it enough to cause a problem on there.

My dads 91 Jeep 4.0 was doing this for a good 4 months and when he did the pump/flush the problem went away for him as well.

You gotta think about the fact that if it was the climate control, the problem would only exist if you use the 'Auto' button. Im 99% sure your prob is the pump.

 

i could be a bubble in the heater core, no hot fluid in there means no warm air in the cabin, if your cars temp gauge stays low then its most likely the thermostat or the ECT sensor, the thermostat can fail sometimes for no good reason, mine was replaced with thet-belt 20k miles ago and i had to replace it again becuase it got stuck partially open, also on really cold days i just stick a cardboard box infront of the radiator, yeah its old school and not fun if you forget to move it when it gets warm but it does help. i would really suggest draining and refillingt he coolant, im pretty sure i had a bubble in my system where my car wouldnt heat up if i wasent moveing, i just kept adding coolant and sqeezing the hoses till im pretty sure i got the bubble out, now my cars better than the day i got it.

 

It's like 30 degreese out and its not doing it anymore


I think its because on real cold days my engine temp never reaches 250ish... I think it stays at like 100-125


would that mean a thermostat problem or is the car just not warming up because its so cold outside?

 

It should still blow warm though, it was 3 degrees today when I got in my car and in my whole hour drive to work the thermo barley budged over the C but was still blowing warm air.

Almsot forgot, the oil temp never even made it to the first line eaither, it was just a tad above 180F

 

I just developed the same issue this weekend. check to see if your coolant resevoir is full or not when the engine in cold. if not you could have gotten air into the system and it would affect the flow through the heater coil if that is a high point in the system. I am going to check that today after work.