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First time poster here and a complete newbie to the wonderful world of Audi. I recently bought a 2008 Audi A6 Allroad 3.0L TDi. The dealer said that an issue with the suspension had cropped up shortly after taking possession of the car. A friend with me, who was encouraging me to buy it, had his laptop, with the VCDS diagnostic, along, confirmed that the suspension issue did indeed only crop up quite recently. I bought the car thinking that it shouldn't be a huge challenge to get it sorted and worth it considering the spec. We managed to adjust the setting to Lift but then it locked out as all the other suspension options greyed out and the flashing amber car symbol came on. Driving the two hours home the car was stuck in said setting and every catseye and minor blip in the road felt jarring as if I'd hit a major pothole.
A few days ago I got the car to an electrics wiz who also used the VCDS diagnostic but unfortunately nothing was showing up for suspension. Just a rear door issue and a couple of glowplug error codes. He temporarily swapped out the Valve block for an older used one, checked the compressor and sensors but couldn't find anything untoward. Two hours later we left with nothing much achieved.
Staying locally with my friend the following morning I came out to discover the back end of the car nearly touching the ground and one side even more so than the other. My friend plugged in the diagnostic and lo and behold the Valve Block came up as the offending article. I decided to take no chances and opted for the Audi Valve Block instead of a used or spurious item and we had it fitted. Did a check of the compressor to discover that a solenoid had stuck and freed that up. Put everything back together and ran the adaptation program. And voila, it worked. I drove down the dodgy dirt track to his house like I was driving a freshly tarmaced road. Pure heaven, I thought. Took it out onto the main road, slipped the suspension into Automatic and foot down and again, heaven. Then a few kilometers down the road Lift greyed out. And then a minute later it was followed by Allroad, Comfort, Automatic & Dynamic at the same time. And the amber flashing car suspension symbol came on. As well as that the car went into Jacking mode all by itself and both it and Towing mode were greyed out and couldn't be adjusted. Stopping the car at a shop for some supplies I came out to discover that the rear end had lifted itself slightly since leaving it a short time before (or was this just my imagination?). I started the engine and everything was as it was when I first started out. Everything illuminated and Towing/Jacking Mode in the Off position. No flashing amber car either. I drove a few km back towards my buddy's place and yet again I lost all the options with the car back in Jacking mode and the amber symbol flashing away at me again.
We ran the diagnostic yet again. And nada. So I headed for home with everything reset yet again. And yet again, in no time at all, the same thing. However the car was now in Automatic mode but no sooner than I was on the Motorway the green car symbol came on and stayed on. The rear end was lowering. I had to pull off the motorway, stop and restart the car. Again, you guessed it, within minutes, the options were all greyed out, back in Jacking mode and the amber car symbol flashing away. Thankfully the green car suspension symbol did not make a return visit but driving locally today it has popped up a couple times. Stopping and restarting does seem to clear it for a while.
I'm just wondering if anyone has come across this and managed to resolve the issue before I take it to an Audi dealership and end up getting fleeced. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!
Apologies. I just saw Audi Allroad as the title for this forum but must have missed specific years. And from scanning through the other forums I can't see any other Allroad titles. I'll keep looking.
09-01-2021, 08:16 AM
Adaptive Air Suspension (or lack thereof)
