mmccll

After many happy years in two D2's, I just 'upgraded' to a 2004 A8 4.2. What an impressive ride!

One of the small things I'm wondering about is that some red interior lights stay on when I shut down the car: vent lights, ashtray lights and the button illumination lights on the dashboard. Even after several hours.
I'm trying to figure out if this is 'normal' or if it's something I should try to fix. I can't imagine it's good for battery life if these lights stay on for a couple of days.
Any thoughts on this are much appreciated.

Jack88

How long have you let it sit before checking? Something is keeping the car from going to sleep, sounds like. Do a search on the forum for the issue, it's come up a few times, It could be any number of components with a fault. There are a couple methods for diagnosis, but none I've tried myself.

mmccll

Jack, thanks for your quick reply. I'm no native English speaker, so it's hard for me to find the right wordings to search for. For example: all searches with 'dashboard lights stay on' come up with results about warning lights. Do you have a hint on what to search for? Are those button-lights and ashtray-lights called 'comfort lights'?

Jack88

The lights being on mean the car is not entering sleep mode. One electronic system in your car has a fault that prevents it from shutting down, so your car stays awake. This will drain the battery in time. VCDS can be used to check for system faults, you can check the fuses to see if any are seeing voltage well after the car has been locked, but that requires leaving the trunk open for at least 15 minutes, if I recall correctly, to give the car time to shut off all systems except the one with a fault. If you are suspicious that a particular system is where the fault is, pull the fuse for that system and see if that allows the car to go to sleep and turn those lights off.

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a8-...-mode-2892181/

mmccll

Jack, much appreciated! I just ordered a rosstech cable, so I'll wait for it to arrive and start scanning...

Jack88

The Rosstech cable is able to tell you many things and help diagnose a lot of issues, but be ready for this problem to require more work. This can be a difficult problem to solve. Good luck!

MP4.2+6.0

Agreed w/ Jack it is a sign the electronics are not going to sleep. For what it is worth, I have also seen it for something simple like the battery running down. It can come up with a variety of the electronics too, and things like comfort close door handles and such.

When you get the Rosstech (VCDS), you will likely have a lot of error codes accumulated over the years. Save the scan if you want, but then I suggest clearing them all and doing a fresh scan, maybe after driving a day or so. Then you will be working with current issues. You have to clear module by module to be sure it actually is erasing them correctly; the auto clear option in VCDS is not dependable.

Mister Bally

If the VCDS does not help you, look for some sort of aftermarket add on that is connected to the battery and the switched circuit. Such as a bluetooth module, Audio input gizmo or perhaps an anti-theft system like a LoJack. There are other possibilities that I'm not even thinking of.
I'd disconnect anything you find one at a time to troubleshoot.

mmccll

mmccll

Just returned from holiday and unpacked the vag-com cable.

Quite a lot of errors are displayed, but after clearing them only a few return. They don't seem to be 'serious'. Mainly related to coding / adaption. I'll look into them later. Apart from the red interior lights staying on, the only other annoyances are the CAR-menu button not working and a worn brake pad message. But this thread is about the red lights...

Two errors which in my view might be related to the car not entering sleep mode

One is in the Door Right Rear module (72):
Address 72: Door, Rear Right Labels: 4E0-910-802.lblControl Module Part Number: 4E0 910 802 HW: 4E0 959 802 A Component and/or Version: Türsteuer.HR BRM004 0050 Software Coding: 0002336 Work Shop Code: WSC 00000 785 00200 VCID: 5DE79A79E13095AF3A1-8008 1 Fault Found:

00470 - Company Comfort Databus in Single Wire 004 - No Signal/Communication
Freeze Frame: Fault Status: 01100100 Fault Priority: 2
Fault Frequency: 14 Reset counter: 177 Mileage: 242064 km T
ime Indication: 0 Date: 2018.08.04 Time: 09:33:06

And the other one in the left rear door:
02124 - Exterior Door Handle Switch
008 - Implausible Signal - Intermittent Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00101000 Fault Priority: 3 Fault Frequency: 9 Reset counter: 215 Mileage: 241072 km
Time Indication: 0 Date: 2018.08.01 Time: 19:22:52

The left rear door handle (outside) doesn't really feel 'right'. It doesn't pop back when you release it, but stays somewhat lifted. Do you agree that those errors might be related to the car not entering sleep mode? What would be your best guess to start with? Tracing wires from the right rear door (no signal / communication error) or fiddling around with the left rear door handle (implausible signal error)?

Another error which might be related is in the Central Convenience module (46):
Address 46: Central Conv. Labels: 4E0-910-289.lblControl Module Part Number: 4E0 910 289 HW: 4E0 907 289 Component and/or Version: Komfortgeraet H02 0050 Software Coding: 0000600 Work Shop Code: WSC 00000 785 00200 Additional Info: 4E0907719 Neigungssensor H01 0010 Additional Info: Geraet 00200 VCID: 6695B5953466D677EBB-8032Fault Codes have been Erased

1 Fault Found:
01134 - Alarm Horn (H12)
004 - No Signal/Communication Freeze Frame: Fault Status: 01100100 Fault Priority: 3 Fault Frequency: 254 Reset counter: 177 Mileage: 0 km
Time Indication: 0

Would it be plausible that the previous owner had some issues as well with the car not entering sleep mode, and removed the horn? In any case I'll start searching for the horn to see if it's really removed or if there's some other reason for the horn showing up as 'missing'.