Whiteshadow89

Hello,

Last night my RS3 experienced a "drive system malfunction" warning indicator. My wife was driving it at the time, said it stayed on until she topped it off with more 91 octane (few more gallons) and turned the car off. Once the car was back at our house I drove it for a little over 6 miles (city driving). The light did not come back on, so I unfortunately do not have any codes associated to this warning.

The car is way down on power. I am not hammering the car, but there just isn’t any power and the turbo doesn’t feel like it is doing much/if anything. It is worth noting that this batch of 91 octane is my first since swapping from E85 (e blend was 78) to 91 octane. I ran the car to 0 miles before initiating the swap in octane and tunes. Prior to swapping to 91 octane, my last tank of e85 started out very strong in terms of power, but around half way through I noticed virtually the same issue in terms of power (no drive system malfunction though). At the start of my last tank of E85 mentioned above I did upgrade from my Uni 3 in intake/inlet to the Uni 4 in setup.

Anyone hear of this issue? The car will be shipping back to NoVA in a few days as we are getting ready to start a very lengthy move across country, but I am trying to get some ideas for when I do get reunited with my RS3 to have it checked out. Looking online the issue can vary with this warning light, but I didn't find much for an RS3 with this light and a loss of power once the warning light was gone.

Mod list below:

-Uni S2 E85 tune/Now Uni S2 91 octane with Uni Injectors
-Uni S2 TCU
-Uni 4in intake
-Uni 4in inlet
-Iroz FMIC – OEM hoses
-Uni DP + Mids
-Uni NGK spark plugs
-Uni Injectors
-ECE dog bone (blue puck)
-034 engine and tranny mounts (Street density)
-Uni P3 gauge with analog boost and e85 harness

Mileage: 15,600

EDIT: Mod please move this to the RS3 specific section

Knighthawk

How did this end up? What fixed your issue?

Whiteshadow89

Thank you for the response. This happened around the time we were about to move across country and this post unfortunately went by the way side. Yes, I did get this resolved and the solution was pretty simple.

The culprit was was melted waste gate line. Not harmful to the car, but no boost was being made. This along with the change in octane from e85 to 91 caused the error to repopulate. I bought an upgraded waste gate line with a heat shield. Car instantly was running 100% and no issues since.

nate

Nice -- good to know the wastegate line fixed it. I had the same error on the dash at one point and it was a bad coil.