Failed injector or other issue?

[Brandon.august]

First post, go easy please! Hopefully this is the right place for this.

Recently purchased a 2015 S3. On my drive home today, MIL turned on, code P219E. Having trouble finding much information regarding that code doing a forum or web search. I briefly spoke with the Audi dealership and they mentioned it may be a faulty fuel injector, and some googling suggests that cylinder 3 is known to fail in these cars. However, I have none of the classical symptoms of injector failure... idle is normal, acceleration is normal, no misfires (none that I can feel and none detected by OBDII scan). Unsure on fuel economy changes yet.

Could this simply be an O2 sensor, spark plugs, ignition coils, or carbon buildup? I had already planned to replace the spark plugs, and considered ignition coils but did not order. If it is a fuel injector, has anyone done this themselves? I understand the intake manifold has to be remove, making this a pretty lengthy job. Seems worth trying to save $1500+ though.

Thanks in advance.

[railroader]

First post, go easy please! Hopefully this is the right place for this.

Recently purchased a 2015 S3. On my drive home today, MIL turned on, code P219E. Having trouble finding much information regarding that code doing a forum or web search. I briefly spoke with the Audi dealership and they mentioned it may be a faulty fuel injector, and some googling suggests that cylinder 3 is known to fail in these cars. However, I have none of the classical symptoms of injector failure... idle is normal, acceleration is normal, no misfires (none that I can feel and none detected by OBDII scan). Unsure on fuel economy changes yet.

Could this simply be an O2 sensor, spark plugs, ignition coils, or carbon buildup? I had already planned to replace the spark plugs, and considered ignition coils but did not order. If it is a fuel injector, has anyone done this themselves? I understand the intake manifold has to be remove, making this a pretty lengthy job. Seems worth trying to save $1500+ though.

Thanks in advance.

They are easy, intake manifold takes about 45 minutes to remove, if you buy new injectors they come with the seals on them if not then you need the injector seal tool kit which is about 60 bucks

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[Brandon.august]

They are easy, intake manifold takes about 45 minutes to remove, if you buy new injectors they come with the seals on them if not then you need the injector seal tool kit which is about 60 bucks

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Glad to hear that. Is it worth going straight to this repair or other troubleshooting first?

[railroader]

Glad to hear that. Is it worth going straight to this repair or other troubleshooting first?

Troubleshooting is always preferable but fuel issues are among the hardest to diagnose, they mimic spark/ignition issues, do you have a way to log, you can check and see what your fuel trims are doing and that can give you some info

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[Brandon.august]

Troubleshooting is always preferable but fuel issues are among the hardest to diagnose, they mimic spark/ignition issues, do you have a way to log, you can check and see what your fuel trims are doing and that can give you some info

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Log what exactly? And fuel trims?

[railroader]

Log what exactly? And fuel trims?

What do you use for logging, log short term and long term fuel trims, if you use vcds i think STFT is called short term fuel adaption and Ltft is called long term.fuel adaption, it's been a while since I logged my trims on vcds you can also log and see if any misfires.are going on and which cylinder/cylinders

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[railroader]

Log what exactly? And fuel trims?

Also how many miles on the car? Any modifications?

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[Brandon.august]

What do you use for logging, log short term and long term fuel trims, if you use vcds i think STFT is called short term fuel adaption and Ltft is called long term.fuel adaption, it's been a while since I logged my trims on vcds you can also log and see if any misfires.are going on and which cylinder/cylinders

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Honestly, I just got the car so I haven't logged anything. I have a simple OBDII scanner so that's how I was able to see the code. I don't have any of the VSDS or vag-com stuff (I'm just now reading up on what all of that is/does), nor am I very familiar with logging or fuel trims.

No modifications. 75000 miles.

[railroader]

Honestly, I just got the car so I haven't logged anything. I have a simple OBDII scanner so that's how I was able to see the code. I don't have any of the VSDS or vag-com stuff (I'm just now reading up on what all of that is/does), nor am I very familiar with logging or fuel trims.

No modifications. 75000 miles.

You can take the intake off since it's very simple and clean the carbon off the valves and start there, 75k is a few miles and these motors along with pretty much all DI injected car are bad for carbon build up. You can do it all at home, it's not bad

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[Brandon.august]

You can take the intake off since it's very simple and clean the carbon off the valves and start there, 75k is a few miles and these motors along with pretty much all DI injected car are bad for carbon build up. You can do it all at home, it's not bad

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Any way to check if the injectors are functioning properly once I have it disassembled? Wondering if I should just go ahead and order one injector to be safe. Maybe it's cracked or the spray pattern is off from clogs or build up.

[railroader]

Any way to check if the injectors are functioning properly once I have it disassembled? Wondering if I should just go ahead and order one injector to be safe. Maybe it's cracked or the spray pattern is off from clogs or build up.

You would have to send them off to be cleaned and flow tested, if there are obvious signs of carbon build up on them you can clean them but easier to replace

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[Brandon.august]

You would have to send them off to be cleaned and flow tested, if there are obvious signs of carbon build up on them you can clean them but easier to replace

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Got it. That code seems to be specific to cylinder 3, so perhaps I just purchase one replacement fuel injector and clean the remaining injectors/area. My hesitation with all of this is that that code seems so ambiguous and I'm not having misfires or additional codes, so maybe it's just a leak or poor spray from that injector. Does that seem plausible?

[Brandon.august]

Update: I cleared the P219E code, and it hasn't returned. Two days of driving and no issues, no codes, then randomly throws P219D code. Anyone have any suggestions on what might be the issue? Still no misfire codes or misfires according to scan, no fuel consumption changes, no loss of power, no rough idle.

[S3NICK]

I bought a '15 S3 with 67k over the summer. I can't address your code, but I have some feedback.

Mine was a little rough on startup. Did 2 carbon clean (long story), plugs, coils, air oil separator, and finally had to do injectors b/c 3 and 4 were failing. In fact, the carbon cleans seemed to somehow clog them up to a point where cleaning was not able to salvage the parts.

My point is, be prepared to consider some work. You may not need it now, but these cars will require maint. around 75k miles. Carbon build is definitely an issue despite theories from the Internet that the MQB platforms are exempt from typical DI issues. Personally, I'd do plugs, a carbon clean, and injectors. Consider using Golf R injectors. They seem to fit the same as the Audi part number, and they're significantly less expensive. Also, buy an OBDeleven and do some logs before doing anything else. I would log misfires by cylinder and go from there. It may not feel like you're misfiring, but the counts may be significantly higher on 3 even though the motor doesn't feel off.

[Brandon.august]

I bought a '15 S3 with 67k over the summer. I can't address your code, but I have some feedback.

Mine was a little rough on startup. Did 2 carbon clean (long story), plugs, coils, air oil separator, and finally had to do injectors b/c 3 and 4 were failing. In fact, the carbon cleans seemed to somehow clog them up to a point where cleaning was not able to salvage the parts.

My point is, be prepared to consider some work. You may not need it now, but these cars will require maint. around 75k miles. Carbon build is definitely an issue despite theories from the Internet that the MQB platforms are exempt from typical DI issues. Personally, I'd do plugs, a carbon clean, and injectors. Consider using Golf R injectors. They seem to fit the same as the Audi part number, and they're significantly less expensive. Also, buy an OBDeleven and do some logs before doing anything else. I would log misfires by cylinder and go from there. It may not feel like you're misfiring, but the counts may be significantly higher on 3 even though the motor doesn't feel off.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm actually ordered plugs, one injector (the initial one that supposedly had an issue), repair kits for the other three (although maybe I'll just replace them baed on what you've said), and planned on doing a clean when I get the manifold off. Did you do that yourself or take it somewhere?

Also, would love to use an OBDeleven but I have no android devices... Mac and iPhones. I see that they have an iOS beta version but it doesn't seem to have much functionality yet?

[Spinnetti]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm actually ordered plugs, one injector (the initial one that supposedly had an issue), repair kits for the other three (although maybe I'll just replace them baed on what you've said), and planned on doing a clean when I get the manifold off. Did you do that yourself or take it somewhere?

Also, would love to use an OBDeleven but I have no android devices... Mac and iPhones. I see that they have an iOS beta version but it doesn't seem to have much functionality yet?

I'm a Mac guy too... VAGCOM is my fav, and has a mobile iOS version now as I understand it. I have have the older cable one and use old PC laptop (practically free these days) to run it. I've got an S3 also with 81k on it and don't think its been carbon cleaned. If you have a bad coil pack you would know it as it would run terrible, and a bad injector would likewise probably idle terrible. these DI motors don't idle all that smooth anyway. Looks like best price is $84 for injectors, so maybe just having them cleaned is enough. I used to send my race car injectors to RC engineering in CA and they would clean and flow match them for like $25/each back in the day - 20 years later still the same price https://www.rcfuelinjection.com/Stor...ector-cleaning . I haven't cleaned the intake yet either; was thinking walnut blasting might be the best for that, and maybe intake cleaning and blueprinted injectors might be its 100k present. Maybe we need a "Clean your intake Texas" day or something?

[Brandon.august]

I'm a Mac guy too... VAGCOM is my fav, and has a mobile iOS version now as I understand it. I have have the older cable one and use old PC laptop (practically free these days) to run it. I've got an S3 also with 81k on it and don't think its been carbon cleaned. If you have a bad coil pack you would know it as it would run terrible, and a bad injector would likewise probably idle terrible. these DI motors don't idle all that smooth anyway. Looks like best price is $84 for injectors, so maybe just having them cleaned is enough. I used to send my race car injectors to RC engineering in CA and they would clean and flow match them for like $25/each back in the day - 20 years later still the same price https://www.rcfuelinjection.com/Stor...ector-cleaning . I haven't cleaned the intake yet either; was thinking walnut blasting might be the best for that, and maybe intake cleaning and blueprinted injectors might be its 100k present. Maybe we need a "Clean your intake Texas" day or something?

Will VAGCOM or another OBD2 software provide more information than simply reading the code? I'm trying to figure out how to better diagnose without just tearing everything apart and building back up piece by piece. Thanks for the link, that's really interesting. Maybe I'll look into that when I don't need the car daily. Houston/Texas is pretty dirty, so maybe it does just needs a good cleaning!

[S3NICK]

Is there a decent VW/Audi shop close to you? That could be an option as well, albeit you won't have a car, and it'll be more expensive than trouble shooting on your own.

1) In terms of the carbon clean, I was not comfortable doing it myself, so I got it done at an indy. They charged me like $750 including an oil change and gaskets, etc. The dealer charged me $1,000 for their carbon clean. I would definitely NOT pay $1,500 for that service. One note, I found most shops have the BMW walnut blasting equipment but do not have Audi-specific equipment, so search carefully. Also ask them to provide a video of before/after, or at least photos.
2) For the injectors, I say replace them only b/c you won't have any downtime other than disassembly. If that doesn't matter, send 'em in and get them professionally indexed, cleaned, etc.
3) I don't have much experience with non-Android devices, so I can't comment on the VCDS discussion.

For the P219E code, I would do the following:
-Remove the plugs to see what the look like. Might be a good time to throw in a new set. They're easy to yank out. Be careful for stuck coil boots. I bought RS3 coils just in case one of the stock coils had some issue, tore a boot, etc.
-Find a way to get VCDS or Vagcom to monitor the misfires. Move around the coils and see if the misfire location changes. Move around the injectors and see if the misfire location changes. Then you'll know if it's a coil or injector issue.

Hopefully somewhere in there you'll get an idea of what's malfunctioning. Do you have a buddy with an Android phone?

Given your mileage, I would also consider the following maint. checklist. Of course no one told me there was so much stuff to do around this mileage on these cars, but I bit the bullet. It's probably time for a carbon clean, so combine some other stuff while you're in there. I'm a little over the top but wanted the car to perform well and be set for the long haul. Sure enough, it ran [email protected] on my only pass at the track. Right on top of what it should do factory stock. You also need a good base before you start adding power, IMO.
-DSG service
-Haldex service
-Carbon clean
-Plugs
-Air filter

Optional stuff could be:
-Coils (cheap, and they do fail occasionally)
-Injectors (if needed, but sometimes they do get stuck open or spray poorly, esp. w/a deferred carbon clean)
-Air Oil Separator (sometimes fail with mileage)
-Haldex Pump (I purchased for $150 - do with the Haldex service ... cheap insurance in case your factory unit fails)

[Spinnetti]

Will VAGCOM or another OBD2 software provide more information than simply reading the code? I'm trying to figure out how to better diagnose without just tearing everything apart and building back up piece by piece. Thanks for the link, that's really interesting. Maybe I'll look into that when I don't need the car daily. Houston/Texas is pretty dirty, so maybe it does just needs a good cleaning!

Well, the codes don't tell you too much, but give you a start on what to check. In Vagcom you can live log lots of channels to see whats going on. Takes a little research to learn what to do, but lots of info on the web. Swapping stuff around along with logging to isolate the issue as mentioned works too.