[Biturbos4] EPC Light on dash

[Wilson Northrup]

I should say, i tried the (more fun) "italian tune up" method Grant 
mentions below, but did not have success.  Then moved on to the CRC 
contact cleaner, and actually followed with stablant 22 contact enhancer.

wilson

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, Grant Lenahan wrote:

> Ahh, someone with the patience to do it right. Different method, same result.
> Thanks for the info!
>
> Grant
> On Sep 21, 2006, at 4:42 PM, Wilson Northrup wrote:
>
>> i had this as well, i actually replced the pedal (i donm't remember how 
>> much, about $80 at clairparts?) but that did not solve the problem.  For me 
>> i actually cleaned all the contacts at the thortle body, pedal and 
>> computer, in addition to cleaning the throttle body itself.
>> 
>> I've been OK since... and now i have two good pedals. i guess it could have 
>> been worse.
>> wilson
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, Grant Lenahan wrote:
>> 
>>> I dont have the bentley, so I cant help further there. But I do know 
>>> something about the EPC. I also believe that the official Audi position is 
>>> at least incomplete, bordering on wrong.
>>> 
>>> EPC is electronic pedal control, aka fly by wire.  It is made up of two 
>>> sensors - one on the gas pedal, one on the throttle butterfly stepper 
>>> motor, and of course of the stepper controller itself.
>>> 
>>> EPC comes on when an error is detected in that system. It stays on until 
>>> you restart the car. During that period the car will often go into limp 
>>> (safe) mode. Barely driveable.
>>> 
>>> Often this condition get progressively worse, until its happening several 
>>> times a day.
>>> 
>>> Audi wanted about $1000 + labor to replace each part.  I winced and did 
>>> some thinking.  I believe that this comes from dirt or carbon build-up on 
>>> any of 3 places:  throttle body (impeding the butterfly); throttle sensor 
>>> race; stepper motor controller race.  This is similar to the buildups that 
>>> occurred on old carbon-composition potentiometers (volume controls). The 
>>> solution there was to either 1) clean them with solvent, or, especially if 
>>> hard to get apart, just rotate it through its entire range of motion many 
>>> times quickly, the wipe away build up.
>>> 
>>> I did 2 things on my 00 S4 after this became intolerable:
>>> 
>>> 1) cleaned the throttle body with gummout
>>> 2) did an "italian tune up" - intentionally finding lots of opportunities 
>>> to get the throttle wide-open and then closed again. Unlike a traditional 
>>> Italian tune-up, the goal is not to run the engine to high revs, but to 
>>> make the butterfly, and both sensors move through their range of motion.
>>> 
>>> Never reoccurred.
>>> 
>>> QED.
>>> 
>>> Grant
>>> 
>>> ps: my particular code was generally "implausible throttle angle"
>>> Maybe just a commentary on my driving, btu I think not
>>> 
>>> On Sep 20, 2006, at 10:32 PM, Brent Henry wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The EPC light came on in my 2000 S4 last week.  Would like to find out 
>>>> some
>>>> more information on what that is.  I dumped the codes and found 2 codes
>>>> related to it...
>>>> 18098 - Malfunction Indicator Light (K83) P1690
>>>> 18084 - EPC Warning Light (K132) P1676
>>>> I looked it up in the Bentley and could not find anything on these 
>>>> codes???
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Brent.
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>>> 
>