Which side is Bank 2 3.0 TDI Q7

[wjam]

Good one! hahaha I almost fell for it

WJAM

[Sportingmac]

Interesting question. I had/have the MIL on and off for a few days now and Audi tell me it is the Inlet Manifold thingie and to replace the offending item it is £733.64 for one bank. However Audi have offered a 50% contribution and that applies to either a single bank or both banks. The offer is limited to this time only.

I have been trying to find out if one bank goes will the other. Audi have modified this part the replacement should cure this fault for the life of the engine - and I would get a 2 year warranty on the parts.

So my dilemma: do I change both banks and use the Audi offer of 50% and do both banks - for £733.64. Or do I do one for £366 and hope that the other doesn't go.

Probably answered my own question - but maybe you techie types can offer a view.

[wjam]

Bank 2 is the most common and i'll put a small wager on that being cos it's next to the turbo

Since I replaced the little actuator arm, my car has has zero occurrences (No engine errors at all).. Now about 3 weeks.

See attached picture of offending part.

Previously a gear broke on the internals and I bought a low kms motor off ebay complete with plastic actuator. replaced the gear wheel internally and had intermittent problems. Sometimes Ok sometimes not.

Discussed with Ross -tech and they told me the % error is 2% to throw a MIL... That's super tight for a plastic connector mechanism with no adjustment.

If you can't find an actuator rod, some of the people on the German forums are cutting the actuator and drilling it as to accept an adjustable rod tying the 2 halves together. That way you can adjust out the error with age.

cheers

WJAM

[Sportingmac]

Was your MIL intermittent? Mine seems to be.

[wjam]

Yes MIL was intermittent.

And the reason.

If you look at VCDS channel 36 (bank 1) & 37 (for bank2) in engine measurement blocks you can watch the requested duty cycle versus actual.

When the car starts it checks the position of this motor. If the upper end is out of spec (cos the default is normally open) it drives to look for it and it sometimes fails. (probably cos it was on the wrong side of what it expected, but not 100% sure on that). Once it fails it moves the motor to the flap open position (like when switched off) and leaves it there. If you blip the throttle nothing happens

Sometime later. Start car and light goes out. In this case if you watch the actuator it immediately catches the open position and closes the flaps. And if you now blip the throttle the actuator moves with revs.

I also noticed that if I pushed the actuator down (bank 2) manually before starting that often it found the position. On analysis with VCDS I was seeing a requested of 80% for open flaps, but the car was giving 81.7% (when working) so we were very close to 2% on a good day.

When i replaced the actuator actual and requested were almost identical.. never more than 0.2% difference.

So far so good and it cost me 70 euros

Beware that the 2.7 actuator has 5 pins connector versus 4 (not sure if it's 2.7 or a later revision) but in any case the part of interest is normally the actuator

Also you can be fairly certain if it's actuator versus electrical by the code. 88% reported on the error code indicates mechanical position. I think 12% is recorded for an electrical error ( i could be wrong but 88% is definitely mechanical position.)

Finally if you disconnect both motors (Bank1 &2) you will be able to drive perfectly forever, but the MIL will be lit. I think these things have almost zero value other than a very marginal emissions benefit and maybe a very slight improvement in low down performance, but really if something costs 16 or 1700 quid to fix for a 0.2% economy improvement then it's a waste of money. (Or more likely a scam by the manufacturers .. just my opinion)

cheers

WJAM

[TheMatador]

Where did you get the replacement part? I couldn't find one anywhere hence had to go for the whole unit.

And yes, agreed on the cost/benefit analysis of the swirl flaps - see my post here: https://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/s...d.php?t=102659

[wjam]

Hi TheMatador,

ebay.de

search for - Luftklappensteller Audi

and behold... loads of the thing appear. I picked the low mileage one, but it had a different plug (sneaky sods Audi).. Did the job however.

cheers
WJAM

[TheMatador]

Well I'll be darned - that's the ticket! I'll keep an eye on that as I'll probably need another set in another 70k!

[Buckle]

Hi All,

I had the same issue (004120 - Intake Manifold Runner (Bank 2): Lower limit not reached) with my 56 plat 3.0TDI 233hp A4.
I drive with the fault for 12 months. I'm pleasured to say I have finally solved the issue cost free, and thought there are numberious other 3.0tdi drivers in the same position as me.

Too many people naturally assume the motor is defected. I have read numerious forums on this issue and finally solved the issue yesterday.

1) disconnect link arm from the motors and ensure flaps on the manifold move freely. The flaps move about 1/3rd of a turn on either side.

2) unbolt the motors but not the wiring loom, and position the motors on top of the engine.

3) turn on ignition and watch from inside (unless you have a 2nd person to help) at see if the motor arms move when the ignition is turned on.
The motor arms should move up and down once. If it arms move 2 or more times, the motors are out of calibration (well so i have been told).

4) Start the engine and rev the engine to about 3000 rpm and let back to idle. The flaps should open and close. If they fail the calibration upon start up, the motor arms will not move.
I tested mine numerious times. About 10% of the time, both motors worked, and the other 90% of the time, only 1 motor or both motors wouldn't move.
Swapping the motors around (bank 1 onto bank 2 etc) eliminates a defective wiring harness. Check the connecting arms by twisting the pins slightly, this ensures the pins touch the plugs connections inside.

5) Most garages including Audi will recommend installating new flap motors. About £50 each on ebay or £550 from Audi. I havne't seen any OEM motors yet.
The link arm which connects the flaps on the manifold and the arm on the motor prevents the motor arm from rotating past its calibration point.

6) I then installed the motors back on to the engine, removed the link arm, measured the distance between the ends of the black plastic eyelets on the metal bar (41.3mm) and carefully bend the bar. This shortened the overall length of the bar bar 1.1mm.

7) Upon installing the link arms and starting the engine up, the link arms prevented the motors from going past the upper calibration point. Rev the engine to 3000rpm, you can then see the link motor working, which wasn't the case before.

8) Repeat on the other motor if nessary.

9) I didn't need to plug my car back into vagcom and the engine management light when when off automically.
I then test drove my car, and boy does it fly. I have since regained huge performance out of my car for which was only a 2 hrs job.

It worth a try before spending mega amounts of cash.

and the upper limit of the intake flat stops the arm going past the calibration limit on the motor.

[wjam]

Hi Buckle,

Interesting. Indeed that would effectively work for 1 iteration i.e until you need to make a 2nd bend in the arm

BUT

I found another interesting thing about the bank 2 error.

I started to have a problem with turbo actuator and every time that happened I also got a bank 2 inlet flap error. Anyway as I was mostly unconcerned on the inlet flap, I got a new motor for the turbo variable vanes (by buying the whole turbo direct from the manufacturer's distributor - 600 euro !! - (and at least i now have a back up turbo ) and I replaced the motor. Audi said they are matched but that's just nonsense. All you had have to do is push the turbo actuator to the back as far as it will go and it works. Actually it's more linear back there (throttle response) but I suppose I could find a point with optimum midrange too. But I won't cos I'm getting about 42 to the gallon on motorways (at 130kph) and my overall mixed consumption since 2009 has dropped to 7.8 lt/100kms which is slightly better than 36 to the gallon. So between turbo actuator and superchips I'm better than 10% better consumption. result!

I digress. The point is as I fitted the turbo I tried to put it in the same position as before (eyeballed) and It would not reference and threw a code. BUT every time it would not reference the turbo it also threw a Bank 2 inlet manifold code as before.

So it seems to me either their is a bug in the SW or Audi try to fleece everyone who has a turbo actuator error for an inlet manifold at the same time. NAH they'd never do that would they

Re: your error went away... Yes the light goes off after a few days if no repeat of error, but the error code is most definitely still logged on the ECU. No panic.. just make sure you get it cleared before you think about trading up at a dealer.

ciao
WJAM