Steering wheel heating malfunction warning message
 

Howdy all. I had my heated steering wheel on my A4 on a drive home this evening and about 20 minutes into the drive, a warning message popped up briefly on the virtual cockpit saying "Steering wheel heating malfunction - see owner's manual" and then the heating turned off. I let the wheel cool down to the touch and then tried turning it back on, but no heat. The indicator message came on the VC saying the heating was turned on despite this.

I checked the manual but there seems to be no reference that I could find to this warning message in the steering wheel heating section. I am thinking a blown fuse but before I go exploring, I thought I'd post here first to see if it's a common problem or if there's an easy fix.

My dealer is an hour away so I'm trying to save the trip out as a last resort.

Used the heated steering today and it seemed to work with no warning messages - I've added it to my list of concerns to address with my dealer the next time the car's in for service. Will update this thread with any info I find out.

Never seen that issue even after a whole winter's worth of use. Definitely something to take up with dealer under warranty, not worth you trying to fiddle with it or waste time/money on parts.

Bump. I got this warning earlier today. I'm going to be scheduling the first oil change soon so I'll mention it when I go in. I didnt think to check whether the heat would resume if I cycled it off then on (busy running errands) but I'll be curious to see whether it works tomorrow when I drive to work. Nice (I suppose, LOL) to know I'm not the only one who's gotten this message. And like the OP, I also found no mention of it in the manual.

It worked normally this morning. The only theory I have at this point is that there's a temperature sensor in there somewhere and it throws this message if it gets too high.

I have noticed at other times that the heat appears to stop by itself after a long time. The steering wheel heat setting will still be ON but I'll feel zero warmth from the wheel (above ambient temp inside the car). The couple times I noticed this were on long trips where I turned the heater on at the start, and then noticed that the wheel didnt feel heated anymore after at least an hour of continuous driving. But in those cases I never got the "malfunction" message.

So Im guessing there might be two things at play here:
1. A timeout function that silently stops the wheel heater (while leaving it still set "on"), and which gets reset if the driver switches the setting off then back on, or restarts the engine. (And the point if this would be... an energy-consumer nanny I guess?)
2. An overheat function that throws the warning and stops the heater, lest the steering wheel get dangerously hot. <shrug?>

This happened to my car today. Any resolution to this issue?