jav

Well, I did it. I had to jump start the AR. There I was in the north woods, about 30 miles from the nearest town with a flat battery with the sun going down quickly. Thankfully, my friend had cables. We had some trouble getting them to actually pass a charge properly but they finally did and I got the car started.

Since then, the list of electrical problems is as follows:
1. Sunroof won't close - fuse looked good, was swapped out - still no sunroof
2. Interior lights - fuse blown, replaced, blew the new one on contact
3. Alarm, window, memory seats (I'm sure there are other things) are not working - have not checked all fuses based on interior light experiment
4. Computer thinks all four doors are open, all the time.
5. Radio went into SAFE mode upon restarting. It accepted a code and appears to be working again now.

So, yes, it's clear that I've buggered something up. Perhaps even a number of things. I jumped it per the book, but obviously the fragile Audi electronics didnt' like it. Where in heaven's name do I start to try to figure out what needs to be fixed? Will a VAG help? Are there big relays that need to be checked first???

I'm pretty good with 'lectricity, but I'm not sure where to start on this one.


Thanks in advance. This is going to take some time to get sorted out.

thejulex

Check every single fuse in the box first.

paulroad

do nothing.. Just replace your battery asap. Then let everything boot up with ample power.

jav

Even the interior lights? (the fuse pops when I try to replace it)

skidmark

You need to start somewhere, you know the battery is bad, then start checking each individual problem until hopefully solved. I wonder if you could blow a interior light bulb which when blown somehow shorted to ground?

jav

I replaced the battery tonight. Not bad really if you think about it. $108 for the same thing Audi had in stock for $169 (not that I think $169 for a 700 lb battery is bad either). Pulled the old one - 12.8 volts. The new one sitting next to it is 12.6 volts. I figure the old one is 7+ years old and I'd likely need a new one by winter anyway, so why not.

So the new battery is in and the same symptoms. One things I've noticed is that from my quick list of "things that are hosed", I believe all or most are things that normally still work after the ignition has been shut off. Example: windows, sunroof, interior light - all things that are still available when the ignition has been turned off but a door has not yet been opened. Coincidentally, the car thinks that ALL my doors are open, ALL the time until you close the driver's door. Then it thinks the driver door is closed, but the other three are open.

I'm thinking I cooked a relay, but I have not idea where they live and which one might be the culprit.

allroaddave

Sounds to me like you might have a shorted door switch, the ones that turn on the domelight.

jav

Post jump start issue FIXED!!!!!

Well, I took the suggestions from people here and replaced the battery and then checked all the fuses in the fuse box. The only fuse I found blown with the interior lights fuse. So I pulled the knee panel and checked over the fuses and relays under there.

Finding nothing, I thought for sure I was headed for the dealer when a friend of mine suggested that maybe it was the central locking control module. He'd dug up something on the internet with similar symptoms:

http://www.fixya.com/cars/t2184705-p...nterior_lights

In the case above they stated the Central Locking Control unit was $200, my friendly local Audi dealer tells me it's actually $495. So I didn't want to replace it without knowing for sure it was bad.

I dug the central locking control module out of the car. There are no instructions for this and it isn't easy, but I got it. The biggest problem is that the floor of the allraod isn't just a layer of carpet, it's a layer of stiff closed cell foam adhered to a layer of carpet which makes moving it or REmoving very difficult with anything in the car (you know, like pedals, steering wheels, seats.... I had to unbolt the front of the driver's seat, rock it backwards (I looped the rear seatbelt around the headrest to keep it from coming back and smacking me in the noggin), remove the dead pedal, kick panel, and trim piece around the door and actually cut the carpet a bit around the vent for the passenger's footwell under the seat in order to get the carpet up high enough to open the box that houses the module. Whew!!

I inspected said module externally and the wiring harnesses around it and they both looked. I disconnected the connectors and removed the housing and everything internally looked good as well. No scorching, no blackened pins or components, and no "recently incinerated computer parts" smell either. I played around with it a bit with my multitester (not really knowing what I was looking for) and didn't find anything shorted directly to ground and found that I still had power in the cables leading to the box.

So I was pretty much stuck and ready to pull the trigger on a new module when my wife - the brilliant computer person she is - said "throw it back in, what do you have to lose?" Exactly one 10 amp fuse, so I went back out to the garage.

I hooked up each connector to the module expecting to hear the telltale sound of a fuse being zapped but it never happened. When I connected the last connector to the module the interior lights came back on. And when I checked out the rest of the systems, they all worked as they were supposed to as well. All that little sucker needed was a few moments in the timeout chair to collect his little digital thoughts.

So I guess the question really is, how do you remove power from that unit without having to dismantle the car in order to do it.

thejulex

Having the bettery out for a minute would do it... but didn't in your case. Maybe some replay inside was stuck and you juggling it around freed it! Glad to hear it was zero dollar but lots of frustration fix

jav

I had the battery out for probably 20 minutes while I did the swap. I cleaned the connectors, measured voltage, and generally took my time. That didn't do the trick. So it was either a longer period of time was needed, or the connectors to the Central Locking Control Module needed to be removed in order to shake free the extra bits causing the problems.