Lazydog

So, at random points of driving, and not always on the same day or travel route, my ACC will stop working. This doesn’t happen regularly and it can be months between events. The only way I find to correct this is to stop and shut the car off, wait a few minutes and then start the car again and it is corrected and working again.

A couple of months ago I needed to replace the tires because the right front started forming a bulge. At that time the SA said I needed to have the alignment done and at the same time I would also need to get the cameras and sensors aligned also to the token of ~$800. I told him then that the car was driving straight and true but he insisted that this needs to be done. I asked what it would cost for just the alignment without the cameras and sensors and he said he could do that.

Fast forward to today

Since I am coming to the end of the warranty I figured I would have the dealer take a look and see what’s up.

SA calls me this morning and states that they cannot find anything wrong and no error codes are showing anything wrong. And in order to continue to troubleshoot the issue they need to do the camera and sensor alignment as a toke of ~$600. I tell him that this was happening before they did the alignment and that the alignment should not have cause the cameras and sensors to become un-aligned. SA says that even the slightest alignment could cause the others to become unaligned. I asked him what the specification were on how much tolerance of alignment was and he tells me there isn’t any. I tell him BS as there are spec for everything on these cars. Hell even the tow has a +/- that is considered acceptable so there must be one for the sensors and cameras.

I would think that if the ACC shut off there should be something somewhere that says why it shut down on its own. Anyone know where one needs to look for this provided they didn’t clear the fault codes from the system? I forgot to take a full scan before I turned in the car this time.

Reason for asking for the specs is I am willing to go through with the alignment and if everything is already within the specs then I don’t get charged for this alignment that wasn’t needed. And I expect to be present when said alignment is being performed.
I am really tired of spending money only to find out what they did didn’t fix the problem but I am still out the cash for it. I am getting to the point that if something is replaced and doesn’t fix the problem I ask them to reinstall the part they replace at no cost to me. I hate it when they don’t know what is wrong and just start replacing parts until they finally get the right one.

RED HORSE

I'm on my first Audi, but I quit having the wheels aligned on my Porsches unless they exhibited unusual tire wear or had driving problems. I just traded in a 2009 with 45,000 miles on it and never had the alignment touched and tire wear and driveability remained first rate.

jakematic

From the same service manual the dealership uses:




I haven't had an alignment done on the D4 yet, but am 99% sure they gave me printouts on the D3.
Down to how each dealership and department is run I suppose...

Yes, Audi does recommend aligning the ACC and cameras at the same time with a crazy complicated laser setup.
Will it fix the problem... I don't know.

Mine does the same thing from time to time and has never thrown a code

Lazydog

I'm wishing I would not have left them touch it then but I am sure they would have said this time I still need it done. They were claiming back then that the sidewall bulge came from a pot hole and the pot hole could have messed up the alignment. Thing was the car was riding true. SA said he was going to pull up the alignment and see how much they had to change. It's but a few hours so I'm thinking they didn't have to change it much if any. Just waiting for the next call to see where we go from here.

Lazydog

Does your car ride true or are you seeing it pulling to one side or the other?
Mine has always been true on flat surfaces.

jakematic

True as an arrow - I can let go of the wheel completely on a good flat road.

An alignment shouldn't take long, but the camera/sensor alignment is about a 4 hour job IIRC.

A 8

It would be very nice to have an automatic curse control given all the evil spirits that lurk around these forums

I've also had my ACC go dark once or twice and reading up on the erWin site per jakematic's suggestion in another thread I remember reading a service bulletin stating that the ACC will lose traction and shut off sometimes without there being something wrong. Don't remember the details but think there was dirt, rain, angles etc that played into it.

Lazydog

Thnx A8, I am thinking I am just going to skip this and pay the charge for them looking into it and just live with it. Like I stated it doesn't happen very often it's just a pain that when it does I need to stop the car and more or less power cycle the system.