Ravyn

New Member
Nov 26, 2016
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Hi, new here.

About the car- Automatic, 2.3 EFI, 110k miles roughly, at least from what the prev. owner told me, had 89k miles when I bought it. but who knows if it was 89 or 189.?? right.

Recently rear ended, no obvious damage, not even mechanic could give an estimate, couldnt find anything wrong, but its caused a barrage of electrical and heating problems.. not sure if its a coincidence or if the jolt shook stuff loose, it was enough to shake my rear shocks loose.

Problems I'm having! -

*Car is only running roughly 160*, with a 192 (fairly new) OEM t-stat.

*Heater barely working.

*Battery seemingly drained over night after I spent the day finding a *water leak, carpet is soaked, theres obvious water puddles under carpet.... (Leak has been an ongoing thing only in colder months where I'm using heater.)

*Replaced with NEW battery- Car nearly dies when Defrost is turned on, Dash lights dim, idle drops to 500rpm.


I'm completely at a loss for what is going on here. We repaired a lot of vacuum lines when vents no longer worked, defaulted to Defrost.

If I gas it with heater on vent, it will send to defrost until i let off the gas....

I'm almost at a point of wanting to roll her off a cliff. LOL.

Oh yeah, My check engine light no longer works, it hasn't since we swapped to a '93 A4LD. So i can't run codes.
Everything else works except CEL.
We put the valve body from the 89 into it to control OD Mechanically vs Electrically. (because of the 3wire plug issue)
 
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whoa! You have almost as many issues as my 89 2.3 notch had ten years ago when I bought it.

I am surprised a 93 A4ld fit and works, I think the electronics are different. I swapped the trans when I got it, a two solenoid unit, and it worked until last year. I was not aware that you could just swap valve bodies. I would get the wiring diagrams and check all that.

I ended up putting a T5 in with no issues.

In the rear, check the inertia switch for the fuel pump, they may cause issues after a rear ender. It should be ok if the car runs, though. Maybe drop the gas tank and check wiring, and check the trunk lock and tail light wiring.

Mine never seems to run very warm on the gage but the heater works like gangbusters.

Your water on the floor, if on the pass side front, is a classic symptom of of a leaking heater core. Cheap to fix but takes almost a whole day. Sounds like you need a heater core change.

It does not sound like you have the issue, but also make sure the fan is working, my fan controller melted the wiring twice, its the IRMC box under the dash by the steering wheel. Do a search here.
 
all those issues are probably not caused by the rear end. It's probably an accumulation of stuff.
But the heaters on these damn things never work, Id love to hear the fix to that problem, Ive changed the rad and multiple t-stats and the problem only got worse, the car runs even colder.