pcc125

My 01 A8L refused to run today. The car would start but dies immediately as if it is running out of gas. Also, the instrument cluster would not light up. The car had to be transported to the dealership on a flat bed. Anyone out there with a similar problem? My car has only 5000 miles on it. Thanks.

April

Did you try using another key ? Hopefully it is just a quick reprogramming. Codes can be lost due to extreme heat, shock, etc.

pcc125

Thanks for your reply. That is exactly what is wrong with it. Unfortunately, the fix is not as easy as a quick reprogramming. According to the dealership, they are having to replace the instrument cluster as the immobilizer is part of it, and the programming is quite tricky. They did ask me if I had dropped the keys as this might cause the immobilizer to malfunction. It also seems that Audi is aware of this problem yet they have not informed any of the owners. To me, this is a very serious problem that Audi needs to address and be open about. I was left stranded, and I have been without my car for 3 days now. Definitely not what one would expect from a world class car, and to add insult to injury, the Audi rep. said that the limit of what they would reimburse for a car rental is $35.00 per day. When I complained about the amount as to what type of car I could rent for that, the Audi rep. checked with his supervisor and stated that there is no limit for A8 owners. Fortunately, the dealership provided me with a loaner car although not an Audi.

April

first actual incident I have heard of ( of course I don't work in the service dept ).

pcc125

According to the service technician at the dealership, Audi has an updated version of this problematic "system". Apparently, this has happened on a few early 2001 models, thus the updated version(again according to what Audi told the technician). The dealership should have received the instrument cluster today. I had to take all my other keys to them this morning so that they can be reprogrammed individually. Tomorrow will be day 4 without my car. Very discouraging, it makes me miss my 740 IL which was never out of commission like my Audi, and whenever it was being serviced, I always got BMW loaners (5 & 7 series). Oh well, my luck.

KevinCampbell

A friend of mine had an early European A8 with some sort of fancy electronics that linked the key to the car. He had no end of problems with it, and it would consistently have problems starting. Usually what happend was the engine would almost catch, then die, we'd have to try again and again until finally it caught.

I seem to recall that the dealership said it was to do with the keys, he ended up selling the car after he became so fed up with the problem.

Hope you have better luck

Kevin
97 A8 4.2

condortax

Interesting question: while the key link immobilizer is very sophisticated, why is it that the dumb plastic key for your wallet always works? What is the point of the electronic immobilizer key if the plastic key will start the car?