There are lots of threads on current draw issues, but they are primarily confined to the 2007-2008 cars. I don't find much for 2015ish. Are there any "usual suspects" for a current draw in a 2015?
Battery has been tested good and was replaced by PO in December. Spare well is bone dry.

 

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/q7-discussion-112/got-parasitic-battery-drain-door-handles-3031705/

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/q7-discussion-112/need-bem-code-h8-agm-battery-3015231/

It's always the door handle sensors grounding out the circuit and often in combination with the car not being 'coded' to reflect the battery was changed, so it will throw the full amps at it, so you can get a dual effect going on; the more bad door handles, the greater the drain, and the alternator won't keep up if the battery didn't get coded when changed out. If you got multiple door handles grounded, it won't keep up anyway since those are 24/7/365 parasitic drains. The fix is easy though on door handles and the coding. You'll need a VAG compatible scantool, preferably VCDS, but many others can also perform battery swaps on this car...just not an OBD2 type, as it doesn't speak German. See the links above for direct access.

 

OK, so I read all that, and I'm going to pull all four pins rather than waiting for the inevitable. Thanks - super helpful.
My only hesitation is that I don't have any door codes except an implausible signal at the right rear. Weird?

Edit: I stand corrected - looked through a scan from this afternoon and found short to ground on both right doors. Doing all four lobotomies tomorrow. Not enough space in the garage to swing the doors fully open.

 

Yeah, and unless you are some kind of savant with the pin removal, just snipping that wire from door side and pushing it back into the dust sleeve goes really, really fast after the first one.

It's a personal choice obviously, but I like the features that sensor supports, so I'd only do the two that are bad, if it were my car... especially since both the driver's side still function normally, which is mainly what you want; it's a nice feature to have the walk-up recognition /unlock, etc. I kept my working door sensors active on both our cars primarily on the basis that it is so quick & simple to disconnect them. I also found the lock/unlock buttons on the two handles (passenger side) on our '15 still function normally, even though the proximity sensor circuit was snipped on both those doors, which is also pretty awesome to retain those, for convenience.

 

I get where you're coming from, but for me I'd rather lobotomize all four now than wonder each time I return to my car in the JFK Long Term Parking Lot, " I wonder if one of the two remaining door handles has died and I'll be calling AAA."
Kinda like driving around with a ticking time bomb. Failure rate sounds like it's near 100% for these things - it's not "if" but rather "when"

 

Oddly enough, my 2014 started at the rear right door, then spread to the Right Front, then Rear left... so just like you I will be doing the wire cutoff on mine ASAP.

Its annoying as heck that the damn battery keeps draining I keep mine on trickle charger hardwired to the battery in the winter and it has helped but its time to fix it for good.

 

OK, so this morning I rolled the Q7 out into the driveway, lobotomized the two right side doors (pin 15, 3 minutes each) and cleared all the codes.
Still need to verify that the battery is coded correctly, but hoping to avoid dead battery syndrome for a while anyway...
Great info in this thread and the linked threads. My hat is off to 10Q7TDI.

 

Still struggling with this. No more codes for short to ground in the door handles, but car is dead every day. Battery charged and tested at NAPA as good (new as of December).
The only issue is that it's an Interstate Battery, not OEM. I re-coded the BEM using a code for a similar amp battery, and I'm not sure if that's the issue. Debating just buying a dealer battery so I know I'm starting with a known good.
Thoughts?

 

I killed a new H8 AGM in about 10 months in our '10, and I was charging it regularly attempting to keep it going. It ended up going south and testing bad, and so the store replaced it, as per battery warranty. At the time, I wrote that incidence off to it being a 'bad battery'. The replacement battery then going south pretty quickly was my 'wake-up' call that I was missing something, so began researching and found the BEM system has to be reset/programmed when a battery is swapped out...that's #1 I did wrong...tried, but my original scantool didn't support that until it got a firmware update loaded in it after that second new battery was going south. So coding the BEM system on car is paramount, along with eliminating any parasitic drains that exist from grounds (like the door handles, but could be other items too) that have occurred. The other key is simply getting a battery comparable in amp/hours (storage) to the OE battery, which is 110 amp hours. The cranking amps, if you noticed on the OE battery, are not very impressive, but the amp hours/energy stored is off the chart, which is purposeful since the Q7 has tons of power-hungry systems and convenience options, etc. The one I had was an AGM H8 rated 95 amp hours. Since I coded the BEM and snipped those door handle faults on the bad door handles, I've had zero problems, but the battery didn't begin to recover until the BEM system got reset.

On VCDS, and likely on other systems as well, you can view the Gateway Module (#19), and be able to see not only the output from your alternator, but the battery aging, current capacity in amp hours, % charged, and also the amount of battery drain occurring, and lots of other relevant info.

You've done the handles with fault codes, and they are now shown as 'open circuit' faults, so correct the BEM coding and go observe the charging rate, state of charge on battery, etc., via VCDS or whatever you've got. If you reset BEM correctly, the charge rate should go to 15 amps with car running, air on, etc., and you should be able to watch the numbers on your battery improve rapidly from that point. As always, the cables to battery need to be in good shape and secure. The little lead that plugs into the battery cable for monitoring (easy to forget to replace) is for the BEM system. Some members have simply removed that plugin, which stops the feedback loop/BEM system from managing the battery, so it defaults.

 

Thanks again. Lots to chew on there.
I’ll spend some time in 19, but it sounds like I’ll also be buying a battery to replace my 95ish amp hour battery (which tested good at NAPA last week)