paddy

In the past 2 months my wagon (forgive me, avant) will not start about 1 in 75 times. Turns over strong, but no fire and doesn't seem to follow any pattern. In each case, waiting an hour or so will remedy the problem, and then it runs perfectly. I live in NoCal so it's never that cold. No change with new battery, plugs/wires, timing belt, checked O2 sensors, fuel filter. Any ideas on where to start? And will "pulling the codes" yield any information?

eharleq

I thought that engine had the coil pack ignition (no wires)?

The hot start problem is usually from carbon in the cyl/valves soaking up the gas. Audi has put out a ton of service bulletins, etc. on this. It comes **only** from using poor grade gas. The simple cure is to get a can of Barry Grant (BG) 44k from most dealers (Ford/Chev/VW, etc.) for 20 usd and running it in a tank. It is vastly better than techron, but should not be used each tank like techron.

BG44k is what you get when you pay the gomers 100 usd for an injection cleaning. Now if this car was older, or if you used crappy gas for years, then you need the full-dealer treatment which puts it in the fuel rails by itself. For normal cleaning as Audi advises in the manuals and Bentley, use the VW/Audi autobahn cleaners/techron, or my favorite Redline.