...Our story so far. I purchased a 1999 A4 B5 TQM and have been doing minor maintenance things just to be sure they are to my liking. One of which was trying to clean the engine and bay as well as possible. I read here to stay away from electrical things as much as possible... and I did, or so I thought.
The first time it happened my little OBDII told me that the cel was P0303 so I pulled the coilpacks and dried everything off reinstalled and life was good. Today I only washed the pad on the hood and the undercarriage. The wife then decided to go shopping, ok we'll take the nice clean "owwie". No dice, started fine then when I pulled out ran like crap. So we pulled back in the drive and took her Suburban.
Two hours later we are back and I get the scanner out and now I have P0300, P0301, P0302. Allrighty then.. I go straight into pulling the coilpacks and drying them like last time.
Satisfied that I have been victorious once again I cleared the codes and fired her up and went for a spin. WTF! Still running like doodoo! By the time I got back to the house I had smoke from under the hood which I learned was from the glowing red cat. After things cooled a little I switched coilpacks 1 and 2 with 3 and 4. (do you see where this is going?) cleared the codes, started the car, waited for the cel. BINGO! Codes are now P0300, P0303, P0304.
So did I kill them? Or were they just ready to go?