jackbraz

Hello everyone,

My name is Matt and I own a 2008 A3 3.2 quattro. It has 166,000 miles on it and I am experiencing an intermitted power failure. This event has occurred three times in the few years that I have owned the car. It is always on trips that are longer than three hours on hot days when I am using the A/C. When my foot is on the accelerator the car will just start to bog down for about 5 seconds as if the motor is being starved of fuel then surge back to life. It has only bogged down hard enough to be stalled one time though throughout all the events when I was at a stop sign.

The car is completely fine under 3 hour drives and I drive it every day, but when this power loss starts, it happens every 30-60 seconds. It will always bog down starting from a stop. One big item is the engine temperature sensor is inoperable at the moment despite how I have replaced the sensor twice now so maybe the engine is overheating? The cure is to just let the car sit for about 20-30 minutes and keep the drive time under three hours.

I am at a loss at what to trouble shoot and so is my mechanic so I thought I'd bring it to the enthusiast here before taking it to the dealer. I commute 130 miles round trip to work three times a week so I am very confident in the car at that distance but something happens after a certain amount of time. Any insight or trouble shooting ideas would be amazing!

Here is a video I got starting from a dead stop and trying to climb a hill. I quickly shut the car off after getting to my destination at the top of the hill.
Thank you in advance!

Matt

Also, if I can help you let me know! I have experience with the following maintenance jobs on the A3 so feel free to pick my brain also: Lower support arms, front suspension, front CV axels, fuel pump, and starter.

vulkus

My A4 B6 1.8T quattro used to do a similar thing. It turned out to be the crank angle sensor. They will cause the engine to over rev or rev erratically and often stop dead with no restart for about 30 mins, or until it has cooled down enough. Check your codes though, if you have multiple misfires that could be it.