Recently my alternator warning light on my 2003 A3 8l 1.8 came on. After a few minutes of driving with this light on I pulled over and turned the car off and on again. The light was still on but when I tried to drive away there was no power. I could rev the car fine but when I tried to drive it would bog down. Can a faulty alternator put the car into limp mode? Any help is greatly appreciated

Thanks

 

I had a 2002 A6 (4.2) with a dead alternator. I drove with the light one and figured that I can easily get home... well I did but the last mile was horrible! Once the battery was almost empty certain random lights started coming on in the dashboard (ECU, CEL, ABS, etc), then car went into limp mode and by the time I got into my drive-way I could barely make it over the side-walk.
So yeah - you can certainly get into limb mode and power loss when your battery drains. Also the fact that you restarted the car is surprising it still started. Starting the car (that initial spark) is what eats up a lot of energy - so when you see that light, you should not turn the car off but get where you need to go for repairs and turn off everything you can think of that sucks power.