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Audi should be ashamed of themselves. You would think a car of this "quality" would know to use better wires, wires with a better quality insulation....
I'm hunting a short causing the very familiar Christmas tree of warning lights on panel, you know, the engine, ECM and tracktion control that have nothing to do with each other. It indicates there is an electrical issue.
The short is usually one or both mass air flow intake plug wires. I can't find mine, but did find a catastrophic wire short on the hood latch sensor wire. I've NEVER in 40 year of working on cars seen one this bad unless the car had been on fire.
1.8T coil pack wire harness always does that after a couple decades and high mileage. Age, engine bay heat cycles and cold climate are all factors as well. I’ve had to rewire several trunk lid and driver door wire harnesses for same issues of cracked, shorted, broken wires.
This is the result of the engine bay temperatures (and headlight housing temperatures) and is practically unavoidable unless you were to use something like silicone insulated wire which is much more bulky (and much more expensive). If you think this is bad you should see what has been happening to USA brand cars since the 90's. I agree that it sucks but if you fix it right with new wire and terminals, you won't have to do it again for another 15-20 years. There are plenty of places online selling any length of GXL/TXL wire with the proper colored jacket and stripe and there are some good writeups on terminal part numbers (I think the biggest one is over at vwvortex). Most of the terminals are made by companies purchased by TE connectivity and can be found on sites like mouser/digikey/arrow/etc in small quantities for reasonable prices under the TE connectivity name. Some connector housings are custom for VAG vehicles but a lot of the housings are also standard.
Thinner wires means less mass, making it a better MPG car... in theory.
Audi has always had substandard wiring. My older 4000 quattros had super thin wires as well.
The wire gauge is based on the amount of current it carries, the expected environmental conditions around the wire including temperature, vibration, etc. When choosing wire for an application you have to compromise between temperature tolerance of the jacket, chemical resistance of the jacket, physical size limitations for the harness bundle (which is effected by jacket thickness just as much as wire size, flexural properties, etc. Unfortunately there seems to be no perfect wire for the automotive application (especially underhood where you have the extreme heat problem and big potential for oil/fuel exposure) and the wire chosen is selected on the most critical properties. We have been dealing with brittle wire insulation in cars for decades, and as we have higher engine bay temperatures and more and more wires in the engine bay for the increasing number of sensors, actuators, etc required to achieve ridiculous environmental regulations for consumers, the problem gets worse. I always recommend that people buy extra terminals and wires as they encounter problems like this so that they have parts on hand the next time they encounter it. The problem gets even worse anywhere they use salts/chlorides on the roads, this stuff will wick right up inside the wire jacket and corrode it many inches from a crack in the jacket.
The wire gauge is based on the amount of current it carries,
And Voltage...its wierd to see, when I wire a 600VAC elevator the wires are thin (8 ga) but If the system is 208VAC the wires are thick, like hard to bend by hand thick! Funny how it works like that, more volts, so current goes down.
Read your post and went to inspect my situation. Wires on micro switch bare to the bones! No wonder I'm chasing ghost around electrical components. God only knows whats more "naked" under the bonnet.
And Voltage...its wierd to see, when I wire a 600VAC elevator the wires are thin (8 ga) but If the system is 208VAC the wires are thick, like hard to bend by hand thick! Funny how it works like that, more volts, so current goes down.
That has to do with the application, different insulation materials. With mains lines you generally aren't worried about solvent/oil resistance but you have the issue with the wire being significantly disturbed/bent/scuffed throughout the life of the wire when electricians service a circuit as well as when the wire is initially pulled through conduit. Also with voltages above 208V you generally have arc flash concerns... We get off pretty easy with our 12V automotive wiring :-)
With mains lines you generally aren't worried about solvent/oil resistance
Our hydraulic elevators have the main feeds to the pump going directly into hydraulic fluid. The pump unit is submerged in the bottom of the oil reservoir (about 80 gal of oil). It was strange to see this when I first started, as I assumed the lines would short out between them, but electricity is "lazy" it would rather conduct through the copper than the oil. Plus oil isn't very conductive... but we are straying off topic here lol
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Sub standard wiring
