200q20v stumbled 'til it died

[Kenneth Keith]

Let me type this out while it's still fresh in my mind. =(

On the way in to work today, my 200q20v started losing power and
eventually stalled out/died.  At first it seemed like when I put the
accelerator down, it stumbled as if there was a boost leak or
something.  I tried to stay out of any type of boost, but the problem
got progressively worse regardless.

The car started stumbling hard and I had to pull over where it ran
extremely rough, as if I only had one cylinder firing poorly, and it
finally died.  I had it towed home.

My fuel tank was ran very low, but I wasn't yet on the "E line" and
planned to refuel after work.  I thought I might have run out of gas,
but I could get it to start and run with that one cylinder for a
moment until it died.  I figured if I was out of gas then it wouldn't
even do that.

Then I suspected it was the fuel pump, which normally is quite loud
like a swarm or angry bees.  When I was able to try to start it and
run it on the side of the road after it died, I tried to listen to the
sound of the pump and it didn't seem the same.  Perfect timing if it
is the pump as the tank is run pretty low.  However, when I called my
Audi tech friend about it briefly, he said when the pumps go they are
usually completely dead, rather than pumping poorly.

I didn't notice anything unusual under the hood.  If I can liken this
to any other car problems, it reminds me of when I bought my Coupe GT
and the fuse for the ECU wasn't plugged in.  It ran like crap in a
similar way, but that's a CIS car so it's apples and elephants.

I'm going to be looking at SJMauto to see if I can get any clues, but
I thought I'd throw it out there for now in case anyone has any ideas.
 Recently we fixed my friends 200q10v that would die after driving for
a while, and that was the rpm sensor at the flywheel.

Last week's issues on the 200q20v was the alternator voltage regulator
which died on the way to work, followed by the coolant cap which
somehow stripped out when I tightened it after filling it and no
longer held pressure when I got to work.  If there's a common
denominator, it seems that my cars don't like to go to work with me!

Thanks,

Ken