Greetings! First time poster here but Ive driven this car since it was new in 1995. I am a competent Audi/VW guru but never mess with this car as its my parents. The engine itself has been dead reliable since we bought it and it has roughly 105k on it.

A few days ago the car was driven and a CEL was thrown, the light stayed on solid. The driver (my mother) ended up stopping the car, shutting it off, and turning it back on again, no CEL was present. Car drove "fine" she said and she got home fine. Next morning the car started but within 5 seconds the revs dropped and rumbled and the car died.
The car turns over but does not fire. Fuel smell is present when cranking, no leaks there. Used a timing light to verify spark at a few of the plug wires, NO spark present (which is what I figured).
I did some research here and online and found out you can pull blink codes pretty easily like the old Audi's, so that was a treat. Originally I got code 12 and 21, both of which didnt tell me much. 12 was for the battery or ECU being disconnected recently and 21 for the O2.
I decided to take a peek under the distributor cap. Take note that NO ignition components have ever been changed (plugs, wires, cap, rotor all original). Ive hounded my parents about this, believe me. After pulling the battery and the lower trays I got the cap off. Tip of the rotor looked burnt, so I cleaned that up. Inside of the cap looked fine. Plug wires all looked clean under the boots on the cap end. I wasnt expecting anything but I put everything back together and tried again, no start still.

With no helpful codes present leads me to believe this is a mechanical issue. Does anybody have any things for me to check? Fuse, relay?
Im not going to dive into this thing hardcore, they can ship it to the dealership if its too big of a deal.

Thanks for any advice. Like I said Ive done some searching and digging on my own, just looking for help from some experts.

 

Most common problem with that engine is the distributor, which includes the cam position sensor. It's best to minimize guessing though and you should hook up a code reader to see if there are any more codes.

You might try browsing the old threads here on the forum to see what other people have encountered.

 

Thanks for the response. Using the key in the ignition spits out different codes than a regular OBD scanner? If so the car will just be towed to the dealership. I figured that each diagnostic tool (I guess they key is a diagnostic tool in this case ) tossed out the same codes.
I do agree that a proper scanning tool is helpful for the newer cars (and yes, 95 is new for me).

I appreciate the response and update to what the diagnosis ends up being.

Thanks!

 

And the verdict is in. Faulty distributor. Looks like American cars are quite a bit more pricey to fix than the junker German cars I tool on. Parents are gonna drop 2k to get this sucker fixed.
We discussed whether it was worth it or not. Obviously the answer is "no" since these cars arent worth much, but they also dont want to shell out cash for a new car. So since this is a 2nd car for them they are just gonna have it fixed and keep driving it.

Thanks for the assistance!

Mike