Hey guys this is my first post and might be kinda long so please bear with me. My gf has a 2003 Beetle Auto 1.8t with around 96k thats having some issues, and although I'm pretty mechanically inclined, I'm a Honda man and not very familiar with working on German cars, and their quarks.
That being said heres the issue. She was driving the car yesterday and said just before she got home (maybe 1-2miles) the car started to stutter, especially closer to lower rpms, the cel started to flash, and she saw some white smoke. So obviously when I got this call I was thinking the worse.
I headed over there last night to take a look and checked everything I could think off. All vacuum lines looked good, all sensors (maf, coil packs, etc) were plugged in and looked good. I had just changed the oil the night before and it was still clean and fully filled, the coolant was clean and a little low, but still above the minimum line, and I could see any fluid leaks. I fired the car up and the engine sounded normal to me ( compared to the other times I've heard the engine ) and the rpms were good and steady, I think just below 1k, but the exhaust had a noticeable puttering, and a odd smell. Now I've never smelled her exhaust before lol but it seemed odd. I couldn't tell if it was just really rich, b/c different cars smell differently when rich, or if it was maybe a sweetish coolant smell.
If you rev the car it has a noticeable miss or hesitation but once you get about 2500ish it clears up. Now if you put the car in drive and let it idle forward even an inch, just that much load caused the missing / stuttering to get about twice as bad. So I tried to take it just a few feet down the road, and once you get the rpms up just a bit it smooths out, but still not normal, but then the cel goes from solid to flashing again, which in my experience isnt good. But I did notice that it wasn't smoking at all.
So heres where I ask if anyone has any ideas? I was leaning towards something like head gasket at first b/c of the smell and initial white smoke, but does a bad head gasket on these cars cause such driving issues? The only two scenarios I could come up with for that was either loss of compression or leaking so much coolant into a cylinder that it was messing up the combustion process.... but I'd suspect either one to cause a good bit of smoke.
So my other idea, and the one I'm really hoping for, is maybe a bad coil pack. From what I've seen I would think a bad coil pack could cause the symptoms and a misfire (flashing cel?), but then the white smoke doesn't make sense. So you can see my confusion.
I know theres some special scan tool for these cars that read specifics and other "normal" scan tools will only give generic codes. Would a regular scan tool, say at Auto Zone, read a misfire and the cylinder number, if thats what it is?
I apologize for the long post, but I've been searching all day and can't find anything quite like this, and I was hoping to figure this out before having to pay a shop for diagnosis. I can do the work myself, its just tracking down the issue, b/c right now I don't have a starting point. On that note if anyone knows of a good VW/Audi shop near Columbus Ohio please let me know.
If your still with me, thank you for taking the time to read the post, especially since I'm a German car newb, and any ideas are greatly appreciated.
That being said heres the issue. She was driving the car yesterday and said just before she got home (maybe 1-2miles) the car started to stutter, especially closer to lower rpms, the cel started to flash, and she saw some white smoke. So obviously when I got this call I was thinking the worse.
I headed over there last night to take a look and checked everything I could think off. All vacuum lines looked good, all sensors (maf, coil packs, etc) were plugged in and looked good. I had just changed the oil the night before and it was still clean and fully filled, the coolant was clean and a little low, but still above the minimum line, and I could see any fluid leaks. I fired the car up and the engine sounded normal to me ( compared to the other times I've heard the engine ) and the rpms were good and steady, I think just below 1k, but the exhaust had a noticeable puttering, and a odd smell. Now I've never smelled her exhaust before lol but it seemed odd. I couldn't tell if it was just really rich, b/c different cars smell differently when rich, or if it was maybe a sweetish coolant smell.
If you rev the car it has a noticeable miss or hesitation but once you get about 2500ish it clears up. Now if you put the car in drive and let it idle forward even an inch, just that much load caused the missing / stuttering to get about twice as bad. So I tried to take it just a few feet down the road, and once you get the rpms up just a bit it smooths out, but still not normal, but then the cel goes from solid to flashing again, which in my experience isnt good. But I did notice that it wasn't smoking at all.
So heres where I ask if anyone has any ideas? I was leaning towards something like head gasket at first b/c of the smell and initial white smoke, but does a bad head gasket on these cars cause such driving issues? The only two scenarios I could come up with for that was either loss of compression or leaking so much coolant into a cylinder that it was messing up the combustion process.... but I'd suspect either one to cause a good bit of smoke.
So my other idea, and the one I'm really hoping for, is maybe a bad coil pack. From what I've seen I would think a bad coil pack could cause the symptoms and a misfire (flashing cel?), but then the white smoke doesn't make sense. So you can see my confusion.
I know theres some special scan tool for these cars that read specifics and other "normal" scan tools will only give generic codes. Would a regular scan tool, say at Auto Zone, read a misfire and the cylinder number, if thats what it is?
I apologize for the long post, but I've been searching all day and can't find anything quite like this, and I was hoping to figure this out before having to pay a shop for diagnosis. I can do the work myself, its just tracking down the issue, b/c right now I don't have a starting point. On that note if anyone knows of a good VW/Audi shop near Columbus Ohio please let me know.
If your still with me, thank you for taking the time to read the post, especially since I'm a German car newb, and any ideas are greatly appreciated.