Tried to start my car this morning and heard a slight popping sound from under the hood immediately followed bythe batterywarning light coming on. The manual indicated it is the "generator"??. The car was running but when I put it in drive, the steering was very hard to impossible to turn left or right.. I wouldnt know the first thing about looking under the hood and my dealership is closed today. Anyone ever have this problem???

 

was there any griding sound when you were turning the wheel? because that is pretty much entirely controlled by the power stearing pump, maybe a hose popped off and and the popping was... or worse your power stearing pump blew up somehow... was there any fluid on the ground when this happened?

Edit: wait, what kind of car is it? is it a V6? and when it ran, did it overheat? because on the older V6's i know it was all the pulleys are just on one belt, so if say your belt popped , then you would not have anythign to drive the power steering pump, thus making it really hard to turn the wheel, and it would also not spin the alternator which could throw the batter "Generator" light... if you have a 1.8 this might still be possible, i just dont' remember how the belts are arranged, and my car is in a diff state right now...

so how long did you run the car for? were you able to drive it? or idd oyu jsut turn it on realize it was ahrd and turned it off? because if thats what happened above, then the battery woudl only be able to run the car's electronics for a very short amount of time before it would die.

i'm just trying to think of what the popping sound could be

 

Hi Russian, thx for the reply.
The car was not running. It was just parked in my driveway and was heading to work when it happened. It ran barely 2 minutes.
The car is the A4 2.0 quattro, 4 cyclinder.
It does sound like a belt popped. Tow company coming to pick it up today and head straight to dealership. IT has 37,000 miles on it and is a 2006.

 

Your accessory belt probably broke. You will therefore have no power steering and the alternator won't be able to charge the battery. Not sure about the turbo models, but you might also loose air conditioning. Happened to me and the dealer fixed mine no charge. Turns out that the A/C compressor seized up breaking the belt sothey installed a new one. Do they still give 50,000mile free maintenance on 06's? If they do you shouldnt have to pay anything. Good luck man.

 

Update: Mechanics at audi finally looked at car and said it was my rack and pinnion steering that went. They have to order the part and car will likely be in until next week. Luckily I am covered under the warranty (37,000 miles on the car) and will get a loaner.... I couldnt talk to service guy on phone too long to get detailed explanation but it sounds likea big job. Will update this after I visit them in the afternoon and flake them for more info.