Re: Weird running 86 4KCSQ

[i6941TB@gnn.com]

I wrote a while ago:
>> 
>> I doubt it is that fuse, or the car wouldn't have started at all.
>> 
>> Igor

To which Todd Candey replied:
   
>I must politely disagree there....
>I've been through that myself. The car would start and run for a short 
>period. Rough, yes. But it would start and run. Then as soon as the fuse 
>made/broke contact for more than a couple of seconds, it would pretty 
>much die.

Evidently, a 4000 would run w/o that fuse. Sorry, I never owned one.

Here's my horror story:

I have just bought my first (used) Audi and, traditionaly, started off by tearing 
the interior apart and installing an alarm and a good Hi-Fi. Finished late past 
midnight, tired like a dog. Went to sleep happy.

In the morning the damn car wouldn't start! It would "catch" and then die in 
convulsions. After a lot of jumping around then unfamiliar car and abuse of the 
starter, I've managed to start it with the ether based starting fluid. It was 
coughing, sneezing and constantly stalling.

At that time I (naturaly) thought about the previous owner: SOB, no good crook, 
sold me a junky car. I later dismissed it, however, thinking that the car ran like 
a dreem for the whole week, since I bought it. It must have been something else!
The car exhibited the classic simptoms of a dirty fueling sys.

I recalled that on the previous night I was running on fumes, coming back from 
work, and filled up the tank with a certain no-name cheap gasoline, which I would 
have never bought otherwise. And on top of that, I also stopped by a local Pep 
Toys and bought a can of a certain no-name injector cleaner and poured it in the 
tankfull of gas. Suddenly, everything became clear to me.

Oh, sh*t, thinks me, you have just (clogged, melted, dissolved) otherwise 
destroyed the fuel sys on this car. What a moron!

The first temptation was to drain the tank clean, but alas! audi did not provide a 
drain plug.

At this point I decided to run the car until it burned all of the bad gas/cleaner 
away. ( A moron sqared!). 

I cheerfuly started it up with a second can of starting fluid and went on a long 
trip to NJ coast and back. My poor car ran like hell, I had to left foot brake on 
the traffic lights in order to prevent it from stalling. All in all I must have 
managed to burn only one quater of that gigantic 21.5 gal tank. I've learned the 
hard way about that famous aerodydamic shape (cd=0.3) and frugality of a 5-speed 
Audi 5000! Later I have empirically found out that it was getting 35 to 37 mpg in 
5th @ 85mph! It would've taken me a while to burn all that gas away.

Anyway, totally frustrated, I brought the car back home. Then my buddy called to 
whom I complained my heart out. To which he sez:"stop whining and start recalling 
what you have done last to the poor thing. Did you burn any fuses?" I'd like to 
note that the aforementioned buddy of mine was hmmmm ...technically challenged and 
finding a burned fuse was *the only* troubleshooting he knew.

I, naturally, sed that he was full of excrement, that I did indeed burn a fuse 
while installing a stereo, which I immediately replaced with a spare, thoughtfully 
placed by Audi in the special slot next to it. Obviously it had nothing to do with 
this typical fuel injection problem, which was escaping his mind 'koz he was 
totally car-ignorant. To his credit that good fella insisted that I replaced what 
I thought was a SPARE fuse. That SPARE happened to be a main power source for the 
injection brain! The car started right up and ran fine ever since.

I would say the whole thing was one hell of a bad coincidence! 

Needless to say, SOB let me have it and likes to recall this incident over a 
martini just to make me blush (since I have a M.S.E.E.).

The moral of this long tale: always check the fuses, especially the one that is 
mounted ALONG the edge of the fuse box, and NEVER presume anything. 

I wish our wonderful Q-list exsisted then! It would have saved me so much 
aggravation.

Hope you found this story usefull or at least amusing.

Igor,
less arrogant and more attentive to common sence now