Urq humiliation...

["Jouko Haapanen" <joukoh@vtoy.fi>]

Day three of Urq on the road after the eight month rebuild:

Saturday morning grocery shopping with wife and girls of two and four, I
convinnce them to leave the new A3 and A6 sitting in the garage and take the
Urq to the store.  Everything goes well except for an annoying exhaust
rattle from the pipe contacting the driveshaft tunnel.  No big deal.  I had
some serious convincing to do to ge my wife to take the Urq along...

We make the grocery trip OK, but later today as I went to drop by work, on
way home, the little yellow check engine ligh came on and I started losing
power.  About 15 seconds later as I pulled into an intersection she died.
The engine spins happily but won't fire.  Checked the fuel pump fuse
underhood, gave the fuel pump relay a whack with my knuckles (made me feel
better) and got out the Nokia 6110 diagnostic tool.  Half an hour later, the
car back at work after a humiliating ride at the end of a rope, I had the
VAG 1551 hooked up.  No trouble codes, just an XXXX on the display.  I
thought that the display should have been 4444 for no codes but anyhow, it
got me no further.

As I calmed down, I realized there was no fuel pump noise whatsoever when I
turned the ignition on, and to top it off, my wipers and heater fan were
only working intermittently.  Aha!! The ignition switch!  As I was late (as
usual) I did not investigate further, but even after I fiddled with the
switch, no start, but wipers and fan work.

Two different issues, or just a bad switch??  Such is the ownership
experience of an Urq.  A USD 20 000 rebuild does not guarantee everything.

Jouko Haapanen
Pori, FInland