Clu

Hi everyone - my wife was driving and got the "electronic system malfunction" message. We took it to Audi and 1.5 weeks later got a diagnosis:

• coolant leaked into front drive motor through a failed seal
• Root cause of "electrical malfunction" error
• replace seal
• replace drive motor due to coolant leak

Good thing it's under warranty still and we have a loaner.

Was wondering if anyone else had this issue and how's it holding up after.

I appreciate it

-Clu

A4 Phil

Unfortunately, the engine coolant leak is death to the motors. Almost instant.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that once the engine is replaced and the coolant chamber sealed. You will be better than new.

Just out of curiosity, is this a '19? I believe that the coolant leak was pretty much solved by the' 21.

Clu

thx for the quick reply.

Yes it's a 2019.

thebishman

This is not too uncommon. As A4Phil mentioned: be glad this happened within warranty, and it’s not something you should have to worry about again. Tbh, Audi knows this is an issue and if it happened out of warranty it should be covered.

A4 Phil

I THINK @thebishman is probably correct on this one. This is a known issue. There are not too many '19's out of warranty yet, but I would not be surprised if we start hearing on the rare occasions this happens that Audi covers it. The bad PR if these things started failing out of warranty and cost $10K to replace would be unsurvivable for Audi.

Clu

I am wondering if there are other known issues - prior to purchasing the e-tron I did read up on some folks had the brake squeal. I had those replaced under warranty. Now it's this seal issue.

Thanks for all the assistance with this.

A4 Phil

Brake squeal is an existing TSB. There is a sticky above with MOST of the e-tron TSB's. You can also request a "Campaign" printout from your Audi service to see which TSB's have been applied to your VIN.

Tronification

In for my third “electrical system malfunction”, so perhaps not quite.

A4 Phil

@Tronification you have lost three motors in the same e-tron? Wow!

mtberman

I keep coming back to this sentence from Audi's 2018 materials under the thermal management section: "Effective cooling posed new challenges for the developers, particularly with the coaxially arranged electric motor at the rear axle. The solution is to supply the coolant via a double-wall pipe and its ceramic seal on the electric motor rotor."