svxit

About two weeks ago, my car was parked for about two hours and when I got back into it, everything had reset; the clock was at 1:00 and the readouts were in Celcius, and I was only able to open all four doors by hitting the central unlock. A month prior to that I have, on occasion, noticed that the driver's side xenon flickers on start-up (but does eventually come on). No problems starting the car at this point.

This morning I went to check on the car (last drove it on Monday the 10th) and the interior lights were struggling to turn on when I opened the door. The clock was set back to 1:00 and when I triedto turn it over, I got a constant clicking sound, but no action. I replaced the battery about three months ago. Has anyone had this happen?

I am presuming that at the very least it will need to be jumped, which leads to another question: With this car, is it best to do + to +, - to - from the other car? Wanted to ask as I've never had to jumpstart the A8 before.

tonypai

Sounds like you have a drain somewhere.

svxit

Do you know if this is something vag-com can track down? Thanks for response btw.

tonypai

I would Vag Com it and see what error codes come up. That might give you an idea where to start looking for the power drain.

PaulW

Have you installed any aftermarket equipment recently before you replaced the battery or since then?

Have you done any maintenance during that time? If so....what?

svxit

No, nothing afternarket at all. The only thing I've done different was discover that you can listen to radio and roll down windows with the key out (but doors closed). But I found out about this after the first incident a few weeks ago in which everything reset itself.

When I got home and hooked my other car up to the A8 to jump it, it took about 15 minutes before the A8 could start.

dimitristx

15min to charge the battery to start up is way too long. Either your battery is toast or your alternator is not working properly.

Or, you have a drain somewhere, as Paul said, but it must be a pretty big one for what you describe.

PaulW

Checking the alternator would be next

svxit

When I was jumping the battery, the positive terminal has peach fuzz on it. The previous battery had what to all accounts was an igloo over the positive terminal, and this new battery seems to be following suit. Is this a normal A8 trait? Won't be able to check out another A8 until I help Banal with his brakes this weekend. I sprayed it with PB before charging, drove the car around after letting it sit for a couple hours and no problem starting or restarting. I'll see what she does this evening.

Dr. Jitter

If your car loose date/time it must be loose errors too (VAG-com tester don't find anything) Check with multimeter current leakage with parked, closed car (between battery and + terminal), If it big find bad (short circuirt) wires. Also check ground terminals under driver and front passanger plenums