[BiturboS4] Engine trouble...

[Edwards, Dave]

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Last night I had my first 'serious' trouble with the S4. During a good blast
down the highway, my boost was suddenly limited to just over 0.4 bar. I
finished the journey carefully and took a good look at the engine. No
obvious air leak. I checked for DTC with VAG-COM and found 16815 Warm-up
catalyst efficiency below threshold - intermittent, and 17965 Charge
pressure control positive deviation. So I went to bed and had a sleepless
night worrying about my pride and joy!

This morning I had to take my daughter to day-care, and on the way back I
tested the engine. I got 1 bar easily. At home I reconnected VAG-COM and
cleared the codes. They did not reappear!

So I had a long telecon with a tech at the outfit which modded my car. He
said that there was little worth doing unless the problem was there, and I
should monitor it over the next few days to see if the problem returned.
However he assured me that the most likely problem was a sensor fault, and
that the car was just going into 'safe' mode to keep the emissions down.

I feel much happier now (although I don't like the fact that it could happen
again). I sure am glad that I have a boost gauge and VAG-COM. I have
suggested before that a boost gauge is useful for diagnosing problems and
now I've proved myself right. If the problem had been worse and I didn't
have a gauge, then I might well have driven the car harder and risked worse
damage!

Cheers,
Dave