I recently picked up a 99 A4 2.8. Great condition except for the following:
-Cruise control doesn't work (i'm guessing it's the stalk)
-The "light out"/"check light" (whatever you want to call it) light is on in my dash
-It doesn't honk or flash lights when i hit the lock button on my transmitter, although the manual says it's supposed to. The security lights flash rapidly, so I think everything's fine but... is this common? (And the range is significantly low on my transmitter- fresh batteries too)... This obviously isn't a big deal.

That orange light is somewhat annoying and I know i'm being meticulous but i'd like to find out if there's a way to trick the system to make it go out.

It says the brake light's out. I checked it, and the passenger side rear fog didn't have a bulb in it, so I picked up a bulb at advance auto. Light is still on in the dash, 24/7.

Should i measure resistance of bulbs and possibly replace one that's making the system think it's out? Any ideas?

 

Buy and owners manual ($6 at the dealer) to make sure your looking at the correct warning lamp.
Then buy a VAG COM www.ross-tech.com so you can interrogate modules and check for faults.
As for the transmitter range, you can increase it by removing the insulation of the wiring and soldering in some solid wire. Search for a thread that 2kS4 made about increasing the range.

 

As for the cruise control, the stalks are known to go bad and cause it to fail. There is also a circuit module above the glovebox inside the dash that can sometimes end up with cracked solder joints. A member here (sineo) fixed hers that way - search out her post on it. There's been another post recently about doing this too. All that was required in sineo's case was going over the board with a heat gun to reflow the solder, and then the cruise worked fine.

As for the light being out - it may be in your high-mount brake lamp, or it could be just one filament in a dual-filament bulb that's bad. Check each of them out to be sure.

As for the alarm, it may not beep because through VagCom, you can code the car to only flash the lights and not beep (my car is set up that way). As to why it wouldn't flash the lights, that I'm not sure. Go through the fuse box on the side of the driver's dash (in the door jamb) and make sure there aren't any fuses missing or cooked.

 

I have the owner's manual and I know it's the right lamp. And as far as spending money for a vag-com, I'm a poor college student and that's wayyy out of my range for a problem (well, it's not even a problem) this small. I was just wondering if something simple.. such as reading resistances, maybe sanding down some contacts, or adding a resistor in place of a bulb (an unimportant bulb, such as the rear fog light) would work

 

For Vagcom, you can download the basic program for free at www.ross-tech.com. Put it on a laptop and buy a $15 interface cable off eBay and you're in business.

For the bulb, it may be simply a wrong bulb in there. Some bulbs will have different impedances, and if a wrong bulb was put in as a replacement (even if it fits physically), it could screw it up. AutoZone will have a listing in a book of what the proper bulbs are for each location in the car. Write those down and compare them to what you have - maybe that's the problem.

 

cruise control switch is $400 at the dealer, lol... $150 at a local mechanic. The part itself is about $50-$75 bucks and theresa DIY write up around here somewhere..

 

If any of the latchs arent reading to the module closed, including trunk and hood, the alarm will not arm. It may just be a bad sensor in a latch.

 

I know it's not trunk, because when the car's on, it will give me a display when the trunk is open, and that works fine (no false readings). I feel like the alarm arms though because it locks and the alarm lights next to the front door locks blink rapidly like the owner's manual states. I guess I'll try to set the alarm off myself and see what happens.