My Audi A8L saga
Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:59 am
Alright, back in August, I decided it was time to get the wife a new ride as her 2006 MBZ S430 4Matic had over 210,000 miles. Something newer and with less miles. So, I moved up to a 2008 Audi A8L with only 149,000 miles. Hey, baby steps. You have to understand that this is a lady who tears the shit out of any vehicle she drives, so I'm not getting her anything expensive. I can't say enough about S class Benzes - we've had 2 of them and they are freaking tanks, very reliable and both of them were still going strong at well over 200k miles. I like the S-class so much, I did the smart thing and replaced it with an Audi.
What I'm looking for here is anyone with advice as I'm tackling, ahem, let's just say "various" issues with the car. At the moment, the wife is driving a 955 S that I was using as my daily driver. This is because the Audi has been a dumpster fire literally since the day I bought it at the auction. My oldest son loves Audis and he convinced me to buy it when we were at the auction that morning. Nice enough looking car - a metallic navy blue with dark saddle interior. The rear legroom is even greater than the S430. Quattro of course, for those horrific KC winters (we sometimes get 3 or 4 snows per year, each about 2 inches, so I gots to have AWD). After I bid on it, I went out to test drive it (it came with a "ride and drive" guarantee, so anything significantly wrong with it would allow me to decline the sale). On pops the brake warning light, followed shortly by ABS and Traction Control warning lights. OK, so I drop it off at the auction's arbitration office for an inspection. The report comes back that it is just a brake pressure sensor, easy fix with a $130 part, so I can't decline the sale. OK, I like the car, no big deal. I go pay for the car and head back out to drive the car off the auction lot. On pops the Headlight Warning. I figure, hey, it's just a headlight bulb, I'm not spending another $75 to arbitrate a burned out bulb, so through the security gate and off the auction lot I go. There's no turning back now, my ride and drive guarantee evaporates the second I drive it off the auction lot.
I jump on the internet at home to see what type of bulb I need for the headlight and realize that the Headlight Warning is actually an Adaptive Headlight Warning. The good news is that the bulbs are working fine, they just aren't moving as I go around corners. OK, I can live with that, because the most economical repair is about $1,500 per side. The problem is that Audi made the Adaptive Headlight Warning a big yellow icon in the middle of the dash that flashes on and off constantly. Never goes away. Well, I shouldn't say "never", because when there are multiple warnings, it is replaced temporarily by those other warning indicators - kind of a parade of annoying, flashing warning lights right there front and center in the instrument panel for me to enjoy. My own Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of warning lights, so to speak. Oh, and even better are the ear-piercing audible warnings that appear at random times - sometimes you drive half an hour in peace & quiet, other times you get multiple angry, blaring beeps every minute or so. Kind of a Russian Roulette of audible warnings. And, at the moment, my Audi is apparently on a quest to have every one of its warning lights illuminated at the same time.
But, before I go into the Cavalcade of Lights, let me tell you what happened on the third day I owned the car: it rained. Hard. About 6 inches overnight. And I made the idiotic mistake of leaving the A8 parked outside. Where it could get wet. Apparently Audi didn't design the sunroof drains so good. They get easily plugged, which means you get water all over the inside of the car. You can read all about it in the class-action lawsuit that A8 owners filed against Audi. About 3 inches of it in each footwell. The good news is that Audi engineers decided that the ideal place to locate the electronic control modules for several different systems is under said footwells. The museum curator, a wise man whose advice I should have heeded, said to just turn it into insurance and move on. I persisted, and thanks to dozens of hours of internet research and a couple of hundred bucks spent on several used control modules on ebay, I was able to dry the car out and get it back on the road.
Over this past weekend, the Airbag Warning light popped. My scanner says "01 21 9 Rear Airbag Igniter: Driver Side (N201) - sporadic 002-Lower Limit Exceeded." As soon as I clear the code with my scanner, it comes back on.
If you're keeping score at home, currently I have the following warning lights on the dash:
Brake Light
ABS Light
Emergency Brake Light
Adaptive Headlight Failure
TPMS Warning (yes, tire pressure is fine, the system only reads the sensors intermittently, though)
Airbag Light
I have a slow leak in the cooling system, so I get a low coolant warning from time to time.
To its credit, the car has used/leaked only one quart of oil in the past 5 months, so I've only seen the low oil warning once.
As the weather warms, I'll have a little better opportunity to get this car sorted out. Any pointers/suggestions/advice appreciated. I'll keep the thread updated as I solve the problems as well as list the inevitable new problems as they arrive.
What I'm looking for here is anyone with advice as I'm tackling, ahem, let's just say "various" issues with the car. At the moment, the wife is driving a 955 S that I was using as my daily driver. This is because the Audi has been a dumpster fire literally since the day I bought it at the auction. My oldest son loves Audis and he convinced me to buy it when we were at the auction that morning. Nice enough looking car - a metallic navy blue with dark saddle interior. The rear legroom is even greater than the S430. Quattro of course, for those horrific KC winters (we sometimes get 3 or 4 snows per year, each about 2 inches, so I gots to have AWD). After I bid on it, I went out to test drive it (it came with a "ride and drive" guarantee, so anything significantly wrong with it would allow me to decline the sale). On pops the brake warning light, followed shortly by ABS and Traction Control warning lights. OK, so I drop it off at the auction's arbitration office for an inspection. The report comes back that it is just a brake pressure sensor, easy fix with a $130 part, so I can't decline the sale. OK, I like the car, no big deal. I go pay for the car and head back out to drive the car off the auction lot. On pops the Headlight Warning. I figure, hey, it's just a headlight bulb, I'm not spending another $75 to arbitrate a burned out bulb, so through the security gate and off the auction lot I go. There's no turning back now, my ride and drive guarantee evaporates the second I drive it off the auction lot.
I jump on the internet at home to see what type of bulb I need for the headlight and realize that the Headlight Warning is actually an Adaptive Headlight Warning. The good news is that the bulbs are working fine, they just aren't moving as I go around corners. OK, I can live with that, because the most economical repair is about $1,500 per side. The problem is that Audi made the Adaptive Headlight Warning a big yellow icon in the middle of the dash that flashes on and off constantly. Never goes away. Well, I shouldn't say "never", because when there are multiple warnings, it is replaced temporarily by those other warning indicators - kind of a parade of annoying, flashing warning lights right there front and center in the instrument panel for me to enjoy. My own Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of warning lights, so to speak. Oh, and even better are the ear-piercing audible warnings that appear at random times - sometimes you drive half an hour in peace & quiet, other times you get multiple angry, blaring beeps every minute or so. Kind of a Russian Roulette of audible warnings. And, at the moment, my Audi is apparently on a quest to have every one of its warning lights illuminated at the same time.
But, before I go into the Cavalcade of Lights, let me tell you what happened on the third day I owned the car: it rained. Hard. About 6 inches overnight. And I made the idiotic mistake of leaving the A8 parked outside. Where it could get wet. Apparently Audi didn't design the sunroof drains so good. They get easily plugged, which means you get water all over the inside of the car. You can read all about it in the class-action lawsuit that A8 owners filed against Audi. About 3 inches of it in each footwell. The good news is that Audi engineers decided that the ideal place to locate the electronic control modules for several different systems is under said footwells. The museum curator, a wise man whose advice I should have heeded, said to just turn it into insurance and move on. I persisted, and thanks to dozens of hours of internet research and a couple of hundred bucks spent on several used control modules on ebay, I was able to dry the car out and get it back on the road.
Over this past weekend, the Airbag Warning light popped. My scanner says "01 21 9 Rear Airbag Igniter: Driver Side (N201) - sporadic 002-Lower Limit Exceeded." As soon as I clear the code with my scanner, it comes back on.
If you're keeping score at home, currently I have the following warning lights on the dash:
Brake Light
ABS Light
Emergency Brake Light
Adaptive Headlight Failure
TPMS Warning (yes, tire pressure is fine, the system only reads the sensors intermittently, though)
Airbag Light
I have a slow leak in the cooling system, so I get a low coolant warning from time to time.
To its credit, the car has used/leaked only one quart of oil in the past 5 months, so I've only seen the low oil warning once.
As the weather warms, I'll have a little better opportunity to get this car sorted out. Any pointers/suggestions/advice appreciated. I'll keep the thread updated as I solve the problems as well as list the inevitable new problems as they arrive.