Hey Audi Forums,

Been lurking for a long time and recently had the misfortune of having to make my first post be about the dreaded electrical gremlins my car has. So, here's a rundown of what's going on.

Starting on Monday, I noticed at rev over 4k my battery light would flicker for just a moment and then disappear. On the way home from work, the light went on voltage dropped from 14 to 12, to 10, to 8 and the car died. I had to get it jumped and limp it home with the light on the rest of the time. The battery draining seems to be an issue that comes and goes at completely random times.

At first I thought the charging wire from the alternator (replaced early this year) was arching and getting burned up. Crawled under the car and all looks as it should. I charged the battery (also recently replaced this year) Tuesday night and all was well on the way to and from work on Wednesday. This morning, I noticed that the windows lost their one touch up/down feature. No biggie, this car is getting on in years, and I didn't think much of it. However, when I was almost to work, the voltage dropped to 12, and the battery light went on again. However, I noticed that the one touch up/down for the windows was back. I'm thinking something's going to ground and causing a drain on the battery in a major way. Based on my observations I'm wondering if it's the power windows. I plan to track down the gremlins this weekend and exorcise them from my car.

However, I was wondering if anyone else had some thoughts on this, and can either affirm or disprove my assumptions. Also, electrical schematics for the car would be invaluable. Does anyone have a set they can link/pm me?

Thanks in advance for any assist.

 

You need an alternator.

Your power windows are fine, when they lose power they need to be reset for the auto function to work again.

Good luck. Also, if you have a multimeter you can test if the alternator is in fact putting out power when the car loses power.

 

That was my first assumption, and I was hoping this was not the answer I would find as it was a pain in the *** to replace it. Wishfull thinking I guess. I'll put the car up tonight and check the alternator tonight, before taking it in for a warranty replacement.

 

IIRC a long time ago on one of our SAABs we had a similar issue that turned out to be the B+ wire on the alternator. Now that might be what you are talking about when you reference the charging wire.

Also, getting the brush pack out of the alternator is not too hard, you could opt to just rebuild the alternator in place. I'm not sure if your car has a bosch, but most euro alternators allow you to replace the brush's, regulator in one piece with the alternator in the car. You simply remove the dust shield, unbolt old brush/reg part and bolt in now. We did that to my 2.8 a couple years ago. The bearings in the alternator rarely fail so doing a quick rebuilt can save time and money. See the linked pick for an example of what the brush pack/regulator assembly looks like. I think we paid ~80.00 dollars for the rebuild kit for my alternator (mine was not a bosch).

http://www.genosgarage.com/images/GOULD_BOSCH.gif