Hi All,

I swear i carry the curse of the Audi...
I've had my engine rebuilt, then my triptronic replaced. Lovely car but sometimes it's a complete beast. It seems every time it's an electrical problem one way or another. Anywho...

Recently my car has not been starting. I put the key in and turn it, nothing happens it's just dead. Take it out, put it back in and it starts fine, drives fine.
This has been happening for several months but it's been very intermittent.

On Friday just gone, had to get the kids in a rush and it would not start.
I tried it over and over but all that happened is it made a gentle noise like it was trying to start but that was it. Eventually gave up after maybe 15 mins trying. Came in doors, made the emergency phone call and then in a final last ditched attempt tried again. It worked on the 2nd turn...

After i got to my kids which involved parking the car and restarting some 10 mins later. All was fine. I came home.

Next day, nothing... same noise, like an electrical starter but no firing.
I've tried repeatedly now but it's having none of it.

I thought it might be the battery (as it's turned cold recently) though this doesn't explain the occasional glitches when starting in warmer weather.

I checked the battery charge and it's showing 100% on MMI.
All the lights are on, dash is fine, boot opens, central locking locks, radio plays, electric handbrake works. No errors except a Service warning re. brakes.

I made sure to take it out of park, tried to start in Neutral. Mostly to check i wasn't having the same issue as when my triptronic malfunctioned.

Any suggestions????
Could it be a key fob issue? Should i charge the battery or top up fluids if necessary?

 

Next time you experience this problem try the following:

Turn the key like you would to start the car. If it doesn't start, SLOWLY release the key back towards you as if you were going to turn the car off. If it is what I think it is, you may get lucky and are able to start the car in this manner for a few times. This is usually the case with a faulty ignition switch when cold weather arrives. You just have to find the "sweet spot" to get it to start.

The ignition switch is about 15 dollars shipped, and is a fairly straight forward job to tackle.

If it is an ignition switch issue, I wouldn't drive around with it bad for too long as I've heard reports that a bad one could simply turn your car off while driving. Given you have kids, this would be less than ideal if you were on the highway with them in the car.

Let me know what you find. I just did an ignition switch a few days ago. I could easily walk you through the process.

 

If his car is the 2006 it has a new style ignition switch, not the older style plastic switches which would fail around 100k miles. And if he has a 7 speed tranny that car is one rare beast because I don't think Audi ever built one.

 

Thank you Nebuchadnezzar!
I will have a play and see if i can find the sweet spot. If not it makes sense what i need to replace.

@ManyAudis, It's true. 7, comes after 6 and looks like an upside down 1, kind of... Though it's not my favourite gear if i'm honest

 

@ManyAudis:
Probably the CVT tranny and Audi decided to tell customers that it has 7 gears.