I need all the help I can get on this one people. I bought an A4 from out of state for a great price and drove it onto the trailer and brought it home. It was fine for the day that I had it and off to the body shop it went to have the rocker pulled and the door replaced. Everything worked okay except for the exhaust that needed two new flex joints. When I got it back from the body shop, not saying it's their fault, the car went bananas. The speedo worked when I drove the car home fine as well as the rest of the gauges. Two miles from home smoke started pouring out from under the hood due to coolant leaking on the motor. I made it home and the next day went out to check wtf happened. After I started the car the speedo dropped to zero and just started jumping, under the mileage it said "In 2", when I tried to push the odometer **** in the voltmeter went from 14v to 8v, and when I turned the engine off coolant was pouring out of the motor. It seemed to be only in the front part of the motor where everything was wet and slung around and there was never any heat on the drive home the day before. The coolant only starts to leak after the engine warms up.

Other than that everything is fine! WTF? I try to be positive.

Any suggestions would be appreciated since it's 5 degrees here and I don't have the option of doing anything but making an educated guess and trying to fix that problem while I'm freezing to death.

 

Sorry to hear your tales of woe.

At a guess, since the coolant's being swirls round the engine, I'd say most likely a water pump issue. Least likely from the way you've described it is the radiator, spraying onto the fan under pressure, and being swirled round the engine bay.

As for your cluster, sounds like the printed circuit board's bad. Easy enough to get a complete cluster, and plug it in.

 

strange things happen when you have a dying battery. i would do a batt. test just to rule that out as its the easiest thing to start with.

do you know where the coolant was coming from?

when you drove it into the trailer, did you drive it any further the 50 feet (up to operating temp)? do you know for a fact that these problems werent there before the shop got their hands on it?

i would get your hands on VAG COM and check everything out. there has to be some codes in there even if you dont have a CEL.

 

The battery is good because it's new. No, I don't know where the coolant is coming from but this crazy a** weather went up to 47 f today so I can finally take a look. It more than likely did come up to temp when I drove it on the trailer so point taken, thanks. I do have a vagcom and it showed no faults. Thanks for the info on the cluster. I'm going to go take a look and because it only leaks after it's coming up to temp. I'm hoping against all hope that it might be a radiator hose or connection after the thermostat opens. Who knows with my luck. Thanks for the feedback and I'll let you know what happens. I've got to get it fixed before the next big snow because the quattro has got to be wicked fun in the snow! Oh btw, the coolant is only wetting the engine on the driver's side but I didn't check the rotation of the belts/engine yet.

 

Siena you hit the nail on the head. The weather finally warmed up enough for me to get a real good look and as soon as I started the car I could see the coolant being slung. BTW for an accurate description of the gauges, oil temp works, engine temp works, voltmeter works when it wants, tach doesn't move and speedo bounces at 1 mph. Thanks to both of you for your help. If anyone is in the area and needs to use a vagcom to pull codes pm me. Gotta give back.