I have a 96 A4 2.8 that I recently purchased used. Low miles at 86,000 when I bought it 3 months ago. It started doing this about a month ago. Put key in ignition and turn it, dash lights come on like normal, headlights still work and everything. get a strangs almost buzzer sound from behind the dash but no noise at all from the starter, not even a click.

When it started hapening it was intermittent. Once every couple days it might happen once, turn the key off and back and it would fire right up. After I parked it in my garage the other day, I can't get anything out of it.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Hmm... maybe the key cylinder is shot.

 

could it be the battery, or the alternator?

 

Definetely the battery! Mine did the same thing, my dash was flickering and making a terrible noise. Take it to an auto parts store and get them to test the battery. Better yet, buy a volt meter and test it yourself. Test it while someone is else is trying to crank the car. The battery shouldn't drop far below 12 volts, if it does you've got a bad battery. You can test the alternator by testing the battery while the car is running. You should be getting around 14 volts.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I get 14 Volts while running if I dont have my 2x12" Alpine R Types pounding

I did notice as I tried to turn the key the dash voltmeter was registering a needle width below 12 volts. Never noticed what it was before as it always started, but I'll check it out tonight.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

just so you know when you use subs you really push your battery, what happened to me is that my alternator came unwound and it overcharged my battery

 

Either bad battery or bad starter solenoid.

Check battery voltage with car off. Should be 12.4 volts using digital volt meter.

 

OK, so I finally got a chance to put a multimeter to my battery and found that it is at 12.33 volts. Seems OK to me. IF the battery has enough juice to turn it over, I don't see how it can be the alternator. narrows down to Starter? Starter Solenoid? Key cyclinder? Can't think of much else it could be.

Please offer up any other suggestions. I would greatly appreciate it.

Foo

 

Had a similar problem with another car and all I needed to do was clean the posts on my battery. Also had this issue with my Audi. My battery just wouldn't hold a charge, but the voltage would give normal readings once the car was running. Not sure when you took the measurement on your battery, but if you did it right after driving it around, I would suggest waiting until it doesn't start and check it then. Replacing my battery fixed the problem.

 

My car has actually been sitting in the garage for 2 weeks now since this started hapenning. It wont start ever. I am gonna pick up a new battery just in case anyways. Can't hurt and since I do not know when it was replaced before (again, used car) it is cheap insurance even if it is something else.

Thanks
Joel