SS_RTR

I decided to leave my car out of tranport mode while having surgery on my right foot to repair partially torn achilles tendon and bone spur, which was performed Friday morning. Last time I drove my car was last Wednesday. Sunday it was dead. I was going to have my wife crank it and she came back inside and asked if my car was "Christine". ha. It wouldn't let her take the key out. I hobbled out on crutches and tried to insert a pin in the outer ring but no luck. I was able to g get a shop broom handle to the trunk release and get a charger on the battery. I had it charged to 12.8 volts by late last night via a 2 amps slow charge. It is now at 12.47 volts after sitting all night (with Sirius module power unplugged and car unlocked). When cranked, I get 13.3 volts at the battery(13.09 when the air compressor kicks in - see below). The battery is only a couple months old and I recoded in VCDS when I replaced.

Here is the battey:
AutoCraft Platinum AGM Battery, Group Size H8, 900 CCA H8-AGM: Advance Auto Parts

Should I start with getting a hand on the alternator to see if it's warm. Even though the alternator is up front, it seems like I should be getting more voltage at the battery. Has anyone had their alternator rebuilt? Other than the cooling, is there anything special that would prevent a shop from rebuilding these? New seems to run around $700.

My multimeter will measure up to a 20amp current. If I connect the multimeter between the battery and the positive, I wasn't sure it the car would initially draw more than 20 amps as the systems initializes ( with car off, key out of course). Clamp style amp meters don't seem to be very accurate at lower amp rates.

I had planned on replacing the right front strut (which was delivered Friday morning) once I was off crutches, but I realized I only have 30 days to return the core. I'm going to have the local shop do this for $150 and it's why I didn't put the car in transport mode. I'll update an earlier thread on this once I have the work done.

MP4.2+6.0

It should be low of course. Have you tested? I would be doing that before looking at alternator--where I recall almost no posts on it, especially for the more settled 2007's. Would also look again at possible defective battery.

I notice you have a 2007. Take a look at this TSB specific to 2007 battery issues caused by radio not shutting down. You may want to check/pursue that, which involves an update disk: http://uberlame.com/a6_tsb/Electrica...Dead%20(2).pdf

SS_RTR

I haven't tested yet. I wanted to see if anyone on the forum knew it would be pulling more than 20amps, which would fry my multimeter. I have updated to the latest MMI version so I'd assume that would take care of the TSB referenced. I'll see if I can get the history in VCDS just to make sure I'm not still seeing high amp readings. System seemed to be bringing the previous battery down as well but faster. When prior battery was tested, it was borderline but I went ahead and had it replaced.

Mister Bally

Your multimeter should have an internal 20 amp fuse that will simply open/blow if you exceed 20 amps during a current test.

aTOMic

FWIW, mine pegs the needle hard past the 15A mark on the battery charger when I unlock it (wake it) so I would not want to be that fuse... also I have two multimeters on which I blew the fuses on and no longer can be trusted. The clamp-on MMs usually have better amp measurement built in as if to say the clamp is pretty good but the best way is hard-wired.

aTOMic

Sorry,just reread the thread and saw we're talking parked amp draw. Should be <0.1 so not an ammeter-frying amount. Just don't "wake" her as she is grumpy if you do...

aTOMic

It's water-cooled, believe or not. So it WILL be warm!

Hope your recovery from the surgery goes well!
-Tom

SS_RTR

Warm if a recent drive, right? I had planned on letting it sit for a day before checking for a warm alternator. Surgery was on my right foot, so Audi is going to see the garage for awhile until I get someone to drive it down to the indy shop for the strut replacement. I'm going to see if I can check the draw tomorrow and try and get to the alternator. Will update once I get additional info. If it's the alternator, I hope it can be rebuilt.

MP4.2+6.0

No, I wouldn't just assume general MMI update covers 2007 radio specific issue.

MP4.2+6.0

I don't have the issue so don't need to sort, but I got the impression from skimming it you can actually find the sleep state amp draw data over time via some fields VAG-COM/VCDS could access.