jamen

So, I wanted to share my recent problems and fixes to my Audi A6 C7 Bi-Turbo diesel.

I am located in Australia. During a lot of heavy rain and flooding, I had decided not to drive my Audi since there was a lot of local flooding. I had the use of a 4WD during this time, while I left the Audi parked in the garage for about 2-3 weeks. After we finally saw some blue sky, I decided to use the Audi. I jumped in, pushed the Start button and the motor struggled to crank, so I immediately stopped. I thought 'wow...battery went flat in a very short period'. So got the battery charger and connected it up. I have a Projecta battery charger which has a 'rejuvenate' option. Not sure what the science is behind this feature, but I know it often makes a difference to a battery that needs a little loving. The next day, noticed the charger had finished it's beauty routine on the battery. So, disconnected the charger, got into the car, hit 'Start' and the engine cranked and fired up with out even a burp. Thats when I noticed numerous errors on the dash. Had the lucky six errors: TPMS; Parking Brake; Headlight range control system fault; Start-stop system fault!Function unavailable;ESC fault and Vehicle parked too steep warning.

At the time, I just thought the car hadn't been driven for a while and the vehicle was missing it's spirited driver. So, took it for a short drive, got back and had the same errors. Turned the car off, started it again, and the same errors annoyingly buzzed and flashed on the dash. So, did what we all do, and began researching my issue. At this time, I didn't have VCDS, so my investigative skills were limited at the time. I decided to order VCDS after reading a lot about how the program has helped remedy a lot of the unseen nonsense that can suddenly haunt a vehicle. In the meantime, someone told me to get a new battery. So...after feeling violated at Battery World and spending almost $800 on a new battery, my problem was not resolved.

When VCDS finally arrived, I viewed a few tutorials about how to use it, and to make sure I didn't have any monkeys using the keyboard at the time in the event the 'wrong coding' was uploaded. After running my first scan, I noticed numerous "Malfunctions" in red text. Reminded me of my spelling tests at school where my teacher marked tests in red biro.

A lot of what I was reading didn't make sense to me. I was seeing what I have learnt (now) are sympathy faults. Where the main problem was coming from I had no idea. So, again...began my research of learning about all the different modules, reading about CAN bus, etc. I spent a week where I had the vehicle up on blocks, all the wheels off. Went through and checked all the ABS sensors since I was getting an ABS malfunction in VCDS. I also removed the seats, center console, floor carpet and exposed all the wiring. I decided to leave the dash in. Oh...I had disconnected the battery just in case the magic smoke escaped from some wiring.

Now, the vehicle would still start and drive fine. Brakes worked, park brake also worked (despite the error on the dash). It's just that I had the horrible audible yellow warnings on my dash every time I drove it.

During my CSI episode on the vehicle, nothing seemed obvious. No water damage, all the plugs/connectors seemed good. No pinched wires that I could see. Went through every fuse and load tested them with a decent test light. Pulled them all out one at a time and reseated them. Nothing seemed to work. So, reassembled the vehicle, wheels on, landing gear down and locked. Connected the battery...and to my surprise...all the errors were still there.

Decided to abandon the problems for a while until I could arm myself with new knowledge. I would still drive the car at times, hoping the thing would catch fire and insurance would take care of the rest. No such luck for me. Then one day, I went to start the car, and it wouldn't start. When I pushed the start button, everything would light up on the dash as if it was ready to start, but nothing happened. I listened out of the usual starter solenoid to click....and it didn't click. But...someone told me the starter motor may have failed. Well...it took me 11hrs to remove it. Bench tested it, and it worked fine. Put a test light on the solenoid wire, hit the start button, and the test light didn't light up. Great! A whole new problem. The situation felt like I was reaching for a handle, but seemed to push it away further.

Let me know if my banter is boring you and you just wanna jump to the cheat sheet for the answers....