Finman

Is there any way to turn this damn thing off? Don't mind the light, but that alarm is downright...well..ALARMING! I hate idiot lights and alarms, and just minutes after praising Audi's decision to forego the constant "seatbelt light" if not buckled up and berating Pontiac's (sister's rental--not owned) low fuel alarm and Ford's recurrent seatbelt alarm, I and my passenger get blasted with a horrible noise--Audi's low fuel alarm!
There has to be a way to disable this thing, if anyone knows how, it would be greatly appreciated. Until then, will be refueling sooner to avoid this thing.

PS: not advocating seat belt disuse, but sometimes I'm willing to risk it

RSC

I know what you mean. Scare the hack out of me everytime.

Ibis

And be sure not to let your washer fluid get too low, or you may have a heart attack and crash due to that horrible alarm. Is this really necessary?

RayE

The worst thing about the washer alarm is that it keeps going off over and over as the fluid sloshes around when you drive. Every 2-3 minutes you get a sound that in a hospital would have the doctors running to your rescue! That kind of sound should be reserved for REAL emergencies like loss of oil pressure, etc. A visual alarm for the likes of washer fluid is OK and a gentle bong to remind you to gas up would be OK too. I guess the idea is to punish you for ignoring your car!

phred

Keep gas in the tank! That's why there's an alarm, to save you from a walk in the dark and to save the engine electronics and fuel pump from damage.

marcos

Disclaimers.

- You assume all responsibility for any and all results obtained by
following these instructions.
- You do so at your own risk.
- You are solely responsible for any
damages financial or material.

To silence the overly loud beeper that goes of whenever something minor
is wrong with the car (i.e. you are low on gas) you have to remove
the instrument cluster from the car, disassemble it, cut a wire to
disable the speaker, reassemble the instrument panel, and reinstall it.
The whole procedure took me about an hour and a half, but I had only a
vague idea of where the speaker was located so ended up taking more of
the car apart than I needed to (i.e. the lower dash cover) and had to
search the garage for the tools I needed. I estimate the whole procedure
can be performed in less than an hour assuming you know what you are doing
(i.e. have read this document) and are better organized.

1. Remove the plastic housing above the steering column just below the
instrument panel. You do this by pulling it towards you and up;
there are no screws nor clips, it's held on entirely by friction.

2. This exposes two screws above the steering column. These are the
only thing holding the instrument cluster in place. Find a
screwdriver that is long enough to reach the screws through the
steering wheel and fits the screws perfectly since they are very
tight and therefore hard to remove (I thought there might have been
Loctite used on them, but there wasn't any residue visible after I
got them out). You don't want to damage the screw heads; drilling
them out would require removing the steering wheel which I can't
imaging is easy with the airbag.

3. After you remove the two screws the bottom of the instrument cluster
can be pulled towards you. The top is held in place by a groove in
the dash; you remove the cluster by tilting it backwards and slowly
pulling it forward (I had the advantage of being able to help it
along by pushing from the back since I had unecessarily removed
the lower dash, but I believe it is possible to remove the cluster
without pushing from the back. If it turns out you need to remove
the lower dash there are five hex bolts holding it in place, one on
each side of the steering column, one near the accelerator, one near
the clutch, and the last inside the fuse panel).

4. There is just enough extra length in the three cable bundles so
that you can reach behind the cluster and remove them one at a time
(I did the one on the left first, it seemed to have the most slack).
The connectors holding the bundles to the instruments are very nice;
to remove them you flip the lever that goes over the connector causing
it to loosen and be easily pulled out (sort of like releasing a
chip from a zero insertion force socket).

5. After you have the instrument cluster out you need to disassemble it.
I did this on a towel so that I wouldn't scratch the front. There are
two Torx screws holding it together. I couldn't find my Torx set,
so used a 2 mm allen wrench which worked fine. After removing the
two screws there are 6 (I think) plastic fingers around the edge
holding the two halves of the cluster together. Start at one end
and work your way around.

6. Unfortunately this only exposes the front of the cluster, to
get to the speaker you'll have to pop the pcb (printed circuit board)
off the back of the housing. There are two plastic clips that hold
it in place.

7. The speaker is located directly behind the top of the tach..
It's about 1.5 inches in diameter and has two wires coming out of
the back which are attached to the pcb. It didn't seem possible
to unsolder the wires without removing the tach, so I just cut one
of the wires.

8. Reassembly is the reverse of the above steps. It goes much quicker
than disassembly.


Notes:

Before you do this consider that disabling the speaker means that the car
can't alert you to major problems (i.e. low oil pressure). Also it's
now easy to forget to turn your headlights off when parking (I managed
to do this the day after I disabled the speaker), however since only
the parking lights stay on the risk of draining your battery is minimal
(in other cars I've managd to leave my parking lights on the entire day
and had no trouble starting the car in the evening).

Rather than disabling the speaker entirely it might be more desirable
to lower it's volume by adding a resistor to the circuit. I didn't have
time to expirement with this (it would be difficult to find the correct
value, since reassambling the cluster and reconnecting the wires to the
back of the cluster takes time).

I wrote this document from memory several days after I did the work; if
you find something doesn't make sense it's probably my fault. Email me
and I'll try to clarify (marcos@panix.com).

marcos
'00 A6 6-Speed PSK muted

dust bunny

Actually, even the visual indication of the washer fluid is annoying. The little animation is really distracting, I keep find my eyes drifting down to watch it.