80 Quattro Starting Problem

[George Tur]

On Tuesday 03 January 2006 06:18 pm, sembai at verizon.net wrote:
> My husband's 1990 80 Quattro has developed a strange starting problem.  One
> evening a couple of weeks ago he went to start the car as usual.  It turned
> over and ran roughly for maybe two seconds, then died.  He tried a second
> time, it did the same thing, but for a slightly shorter period.  On the
> third try, the car didn't turn over at all.  He waited an hour and tried
> again, and it started right up.  The next day he left the car home.  I went
> out and started it a couple of different times without any problem.  I also
> put a battery charger on to make sure a low battery wouldn't be a problem.
>
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Do these cars have a timing reference sensor? Because this sounds just like a 
failed timing reference sensor, or an ignition switch.