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New owner of an 18 A5 Coupe 2.0T. Bought it with 51K miles. It's had all services done up to this point and never had any major work done to it.
Last week when driving home on the highway and passing a car, I got the "Drive System Malfunction" error. It still drove ok, but seemed to be lacking some power. I shut the car off, and the error disappeared. I scanned the car with my generic OBD2 reader and there were no stored faults or any indication that anything was wrong.
Again last night on my way home from work, the same thing happened. Passing a car, got the error, shut off the car, turned it back on, and it went away and ran fine. Again, no stored codes.
I did recently purchase OBDEleven (waiting for it to arrive) to troubleshoot my AC not being cold, so I'm figuring I'll see some stored log data in there, but I figured I'd toss a post out here to see what others are seeing with this. I have seen everything from a $12 sensor to the entire turbo assembly needing replaced for $2500.
there is no way to diagnose this nor come to any conclusions without scanning the computers and getting any codes off the vehicle. please let us know what you find so we can help you further. in the meantime you could go to autozone or advance auto and have them scan the computer and see if they come back with any trouble codes...
I got this same message along with every other system malfunction known to mankind a few weeks ago on my 2017 A4 about 5 hours from home. One of the several messages said it was limiting RPMs to 3800 to protect the engine. I turned the car off and turned back on and everything cleared and have not received anything since. When I got home I attached OBDeleven and it showed a lot of messages for data bus errors across several systems along with some other errors. Prior to this I have not had a single issue with the car, but now I suspect that a part is starting to go bad and it will flare up again very soon.
I had a couple of instances of the Drive System Malfunction error on my new (to me) 2019 RS5 Sportback. I didn't have the engine limited, but did have Adaptive Cruise unable to be used. I checked codes and in addition to a code that the bus for Adaptive Cruise failing to initiate, I had Barometric Pressure Sensor out of range errors. Took it to the dealership - tech found the same Barometric Pressure Sensor errors from about a month before I purchased the car. That particular sensor is integrated into the ECM, so they're going to replace it under warranty. Unfortunately, lead time on an ECM is a couple of weeks. Fortunately, the tech says it should be okay to drive, so I get to pick it up Monday while we wait for the ECM to come in. He also thinks this may fix the Adaptive Cruise issue...
Basically because I'm lazy and forgetful I leave my OBDEleven dongle plugged into the car all the time. Are there any issues in doing this? I'll do my best to make sure I pull it prior to visiting the dealership...
Basically because I'm lazy and forgetful I leave my OBDEleven dongle plugged into the car all the time. Are there any issues in doing this? I'll do my best to make sure I pull it prior to visiting the dealership...
I was / am the same way. I did leave my OBDEleven plugged in once when it went in for its yearly service. When I went in to pickup my car my SA / Mechanic noted that the “customers supplied OBD Device was removed for yearly maintenance service and reinstalled at completion of service.”
AFAIK there is no downside to leaving it plugged in full time; I don’t know if it’s drawing power or not when the car is parked but I’ve never encountered a battery problem . . . yet.
I don't have OBDEleven, but I leave a BT dongle in the car at all times for Carista and Torque Pro. This isn't a problem, even when it goes to the dealer.
07-20-2022, 12:54 PM
Drive System Malfunction
