I didn't have much joy getting to work yesterday and very nearly got stuck in snow..this morning my Audi A4 seems to have a major problem. The whole car seems to continually shudder once i get out of 2nd gear and there seems to be very little power in from the Engine..the rev counter wont go above 2000 rpm even if i put my foot to the floor..the faster i go the more the car shudders and shakes.

Could it be an engine problem or a computer malfunction..or something that would have happened driving in deep snow yesterday?

Any takers?

I've had similar problems after driving in blowing snow and cold temps with no gasline antifreeze or fuel injector cleaner in my gas (fuel injected Rabbit). The air sump was frosted all around inside and the gasline antifreeze fixed it. You could try it and see if it unfrosts (if that's the problem). If you plugged up the air intake with snow unclogging it may be in order (maybe check the air filter too).

Ok ill check the filters..my car is garaged overnight so im guessing any snow in the car should have thawed out..but maybe not

Did the car enter 'emergency get you home' mode ?

Nope nothing has come up in terms of the computer car management system..so that tells me maybe it is an issue with snow or cold or both..maybe the wheels and brakes are clogged with snow and it has frozen..maybe it has thrown the balancing out on the car?

I'll ask the man with a million cars when he gets home...

Maybe water in the electrics making the car run on a cylinder or two less. Try WD 40 all over the plugs and HT leads and any wires u can see

Everyone knows that the solution to any weird and disturbing noise that a car makes is to turn up the radio

This may be how we ended up in a situation where the wheel bearings were "hanging on by a thread" on our first car!

unfortunately diagnosing something like this over the internet is just a wild goose chase

are there any lights on your instrument panel at all?

if there's no engine management lights showing, then that's a good sign right now. As another poster mentioned, the car might be in "limp home" mode, which is what it does sound like (no power, low rev limit) but the engine management light would be present in that scenario

i would offer to pop round and hook it up to my diagnostic machine to check for anything, but being an Audi, i'm sure they use the VWAG specialist system "VAG-COM" which I don't actually have, just an OBDII code scanner.

have you checked all your fluid levels etc recently? or had the car "Winterized"?

If there's snow stuck in about the brakes and wheels, it could be messing with the Traction control system if you have one?

The car is garaged so the snow would most likely have melted. I still say it'd dropped a cylinder hence vibration and power loss. Any back firing or popping from the exhaust ?????

yeah, its an Audi, so there's a good chance a coil pack has given up!

If it's got no power, but there are no other indications, sounds just like what happened to my Skoda when the turbo went. Could barely climb hills, almost no power beyond first gear.

Losing a coil or whatever will make it rough, but it should still do over 2k rpm.

No check engine light? If its limiting to 2000rpm chances are its a sensor issue and its being limited by the management system in some sort of "limp mode" but you would expect the engine light to be blinking at you.

Could have clogged up the air intake or exhaust I suppose which may effect the power, and the shuddering and shaking is most likely snow stuck in the wheels throwing them out of balance, thats happened to me before now. Can be worse after the car has sat and residual heat has melted some snow and its then had the opportunity to freeze elsewhere overnight.

The car has power in the 1st three gears..then the engine wont deliver power beyond 2000rpm once into 4, 5 and 6..no warning lights have come on anywhere or at anytime.

Did you try the gasline antifreeze? If you've put gasline antifreeze in your tank and let the car warm up and it still happens then it might be one of the other problems, otherwise it still sounds like your fuel injector is frosted up because it happened after driving through the snow. I'd troubleshoot it like that just because that's what happened to me and that's #1 on the list and when troubleshooting you start with #1. Not only the most likely solution but the cheapest and easiest. If you dislodged a plugwire hitting a snowdrift pressing them back in place takes a few seconds and looking at the engine while running in the dark will show if there are any loose sparks flying around. If a brake was stuck your car would be pulling to one side and you'd probably hear it.