On the advice of Scott D.? (from the A6 forum) I am re-posting this here:

Hello, and I ask for opinions/guidance.

I park the 2000 A6 Quattro, classic 2.8 in a garage here in downtown Chicago. Recently, the garage personnel had to jump start my car.

The symphony stereo was dead as a doornail, the air bag light came on, and the transmission revs between upshifts between all gears.

So I took it to Lee's Foreign Car Service here in town, near downtown. Lee's has always done good work, btw.

Lee's replaced a fuse inside the stereo, a "main fuse" on the firewall (?), brake light switch, cooling system switch. They could not fix the transmission problem. Cost? $900.

I should point out, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this A6 until the day the garage people brought it to me after a jump start that I could not see them do. I do know they use a battery cart, at least.

Lee's speculated that the garage may have hooked up the jumper cables backwards. One manager there told me these items were "totally consistent" with incorrectly jump starting a high end car.

What's most shocking, perhaps, is they recommend I take it to a dealer for the transmission. They said their computer is not capable of resetting it. I have never before had a foreign car specialist throw up their hands and give up on a repair that way. And I've only spent $900 with them.

That seems odd. I am gonna try the Audi Exchange, and hope it's just something needing to be reset. That dealership is pretty far away, but I hear bad things about the nearby one.

I expect the garage to balk at this bill, too. I sure wondered about the brake light and cooling system switches being affected by this jump. But Lee's service manager said he sees this from time to time result from and improprly performed jump.

What do you think?

 

they could have cooked the ECU, I've seen it before.

 

get someone from around here to VAG it for you. Best way to test any part the computer systems.

 

Thanks for that, CvTech. Think I better stick with a dealership for this, since the parking garage will just submit it to their insurance company, and Lee's said to take to a dealer. Not doing that now might mess things up for their insurance, I'm thinking.

Scott recommended the Westmont Audi dealership, or else Chicago Performance and Tuning in Melrose Park (not a dealer, but people like them).

 

Continental Audi ain't bad either...and Al @ CPT...he's great!!

 

Al at CPT could surely do it, no question.

 

Try at least reseting everything - unplug the battery for 15 minutes and plug it back

 

and some things like the trans computer really don't reset all that easy. Sometime requires a VAG just to reset that portion.

 

alarm got some backup battery that will last longer.