Mikes2.7T

Well things have advanced since my original post. Here's the update.

Thanks for the advice/comments from several posters regarding options. The dealer lent me a brand new A4 during this mess. Not an A8, but a hell of a lot better than an Enterprise Rental special (Nissan Altima). And fear not, there was no way I was planning to let AoA off the hook after such protracted downtime. But you gotta pick your time ;-)

After I told them yesterday that I wanted a new vehicle, things moved into high gear and my local dealer received phones calls from several different service centers around the country, all voluteering to help solve the problem.

As of late last night they believe they have it fixed...

Skiwi and S4master1 both explaned the function of the intelligent power manager very well, so I'll merely call your attention to the third function that Skiwi described, specifically: "regulate charging voltage regulation and load reduction with the engine running."

What is important to know is that the power manager not only manages the state of the system while the power is draining (> 28 mA draw while off), but it expects to manage the system while the battery is recovering (i.e. charging). So if a battery level falls to the point where it turn off one or more systems, they will stay off until the charge level return to a safe level.

But what happens if you take a dead battery out of the A8 and charge it outside of the car??? Simple, the embbeded computer that is the power manager gets very, very confused. Repeated handling of the battery outside of the vehicle makes the problem worse.

The solution was to reset the unit and allow it to grab the current state of the vehicle and oversee the charging of the battery as/if necessary.

The dealer is keeping it one more day to make sure that everything is stable and the battery level is properly maintained after 24 hours powered down.

Misc: AoA will be reimbursing me for a month's payment. I've been driving an '04 A4 in the interim (not like my 2.7t nor the A8, but better than a rental Nissan Altima). I ripped the dealer a new rear orifice after the first week. This changed their attitude towrds me for the remainder. My tactic all along was to allow things to get right to the lemon law trigger before bringing AoA into the picture directly. Pressure worked as expected.

So tomorrow AM I get a call to tell me the car starts without a problem, or that the problem persists. If the problem persists, I get a new vehicle.

Thanks for your "emotional support" during this trying time ;-) and remember this lesson if your current generation A8 batter level falls...

Mike

greenie

So Audi may have an intelligent manager problem? LOL

greenie

Good news Mike and thanks for the post!

Plano-4.2

Unfortunate naming, eh? Or German humor? ;-)

greenie

Plano, are you home?

Plano-4.2

I hit 2400 miles yesterday - Woo-hoo! How many miles have you piled on going back and forth to the mailbox?

skiwi

i wondered when i wrote "battery diagnosis can be determined by vag-com. however a new battery should not be connected unless adaption is undertaken (menu item "battery manager encoding")" whether the dealer had forgotten this.

in other words, you cannot just plug a new battery in without allowing the controller to know of the fact - otherwise it assumes it is dealing with the original sick puppy...

JimR

It manages electrical power, but has to be told it has had a battery removed and replaced? You'd think that it would recognize the battery removal, and reset on it's own, without requiring human intervention with a VAG-COM. That's nuts. Someone needs to go write a few more lines of code and add-in that functionality.

ryoung

by adding distilled water.

Mikes2.7T

After the hopefull news yesterday, bad news followed today.

The dealer reset the power management unit so that it would re-sync with the current state of the battery/electrical system. It charged itself (so to speak), and seemed to be maintaining it's level. I had them keep it one more day to be absolutely certain that the problem was behind us...

This morning they found the battery as dead as my enthusiasm for this car.

I informed my service manager and my AoA advocate that I don't want this car anymore. They've tripped all three gates in the Massachusetts lemon law (greater than 15 days without a repair, 3 attempts, a warning and final attempt to repair).

I **loved** my A6 2.7T so much, that this is really a major disappointment. I expanded my budget to get the A8, but I don't think I should stretch it more to get the RS6 (despite my lust for it).

Let's see if AoA does right by me, or if they require a brass knuckles brawl to buy back this dud.

Still Sad Mike