So to bring everyone up to speed on what's going on ill start from one week ago today, I had scheduled with my local Audi dealer (Ken gaff Audi of Lehi for anyone local to me) to have some recall work done. The recall work involved replacing the electronic water pump because of known electronic failure causing fires. The work was scheduled for last Monday, it took half the day to complete and had my car back by the end of the day. Side note, I have simple add ons done to my car. Ive got wheels and tires and a new grill, nothing internal, no tune, no exhaust, nothing, its fairly stock to keep the warranty. Back to the story. Got my car back no problems nothing to lead me to believe that something wasn't done properly. Three days later, getting onto the freeway less than a mile from my house the error message beeped at me that there was an alternator fault and battery was not charging. I pulled to the side of road immediately popped the hood car running to inspect if something was obviously wrong. Nothing caught my eye and I work at a car shop so I figured id be better off getting my car to the shop so I could use the battery tester and obd2 scan tool.
Made it to my work few miles away and no noticeable issues with the car, no other codes pulling up, no electronic systems failing or turning due to lack of power. I decided to wait till after work to take a look at it. For my lunch break I took the car down the street and first thing I noticed turning the car on, the error message had gone away. Fast forward to end of day, I decided to drive the car without diagnosing anything cause I convinced myself throughout the day it was prolly the rain we'd been having for two weeks straight just got some water up some electronics.
Next day drove the car to work no issues, no codes and the same went for two consecutive days. Friday rolls around and the car flashes the error message again right as I start it up in the morning. Drove to work with the code, no issues and same situation happened that day. Error message had gone away by time I went to lunch.
I drove the car until the following Thursday, when the error message came up for the third time. I was off work that day and had time to run some tests on the car. First thing I looked over was the battery, it tested 500 out of 800 CCA which I expected due to "bad alternator". I ran an alternator test and it came with no issues found. It was turning out 13.8Volts which Is right where it should be at idle. Error message was gone by time I was done. I didnt come up with anything wrong.
Until today. I drove the car to work and immediately the car brought the message up on the freeway. I decided its time I called the dealership, because obviously something was wrong that I couldn't figure the cause of the error message. I hate to be that customer trying to connect dots between work we had done and future issues with the car that had no relevance. Ive been doing the car shop game long enough to know that dealing with those customers sucks but, I'm also knowledgeable enough to understand that an electric water pump would involve some sort of disconnect from power and if not done properly can damage other components. I set an appt for The upcoming Monday to have the car serviced.
Of course the universe had other plans and I didnt make it back from the lunch break lol. In the middle of a drive through, a slow death of all electronics occurred. First the abs, traction control, engine light and an error saying failure popped up. Then power steering, tpms, transmission, and every code imaginable and every message flashed through, even codes I didnt know existed popped up. Then the Audi MMI shut off, and finally the music stopped and the car died. I Pulled the key, and tried restarting it immediately. Nothing even flickered. Somehow managed to turn pull some random life out of the car to get it into neutral and no one one was behind me so I cracked the door and Fred flinestoned my baby into a parking stall.
So as of right now (Friday) got the car towed to the dealer that did the original recall work. The service advisor wasnt much to try and help diagnose at the counter but he pretty much said he has only seen a handful of alternators go bad and that he doesn't think it was a random event to happen after what work was done. Calming my nerves a little to prepare for whatever expense is prolly going to be served to me
Ill keep ya'll updated, I should know tomorrow some idea of what happened.
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Originally Posted by Novarider
. Usually my idle goes up when the voltage drops
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