A6 no crank no start, car doesnt know its in park or neutral
 

Hi and thanks for reading my posting. My 2006 A6 3.2 Quattro has approximately 150k miles, after shutting the car off to pump gas, decided not to crank. Battery appeared strong but i tried jumping anyway.. but didnt work. I assumed it was the starter. When turning the key, I did'nt hear any clicking. So I took it to the dealer and they spent 2 hrs looking at it, and said they needed 4 more hrs. So i took the car back. I would think if your the dealer and u cant figure it out in 2 hrs or less, that the customer shouldnt have to pay for your inability to do your job efficiently. So, now i have the car back.. and there is a indicator that says Put the Car in Park or Neutral to start. This message wasnt there b4, until after they started mucking with it. The dealer said they ruled out the starter, ignition switch, and was fixated on the Tiptronics code that was present.. but my Tiptronic hasnt worked in 5 years.. and they saw those same codes the last time i had the car in for a problem. So they wasted most of their time replacing that F189 switch to no avail. Read several other posts.. havent seen any specific problem mentioning the car not knowing whether its in park.

Thanks in advance for your expertise and insight.

-E

Any luck
 

I’m having the same problem any solution??

re:
 

1st i took it to the dealer. They wasted 2 hrs and said the only thing they ruled out was the park neutral switch. I had already done that. I was so mad, I told them to stop and i towed the car to a friend/mechanic that had a small shop. He had access to this All Data database and found an Audi posting that stated it was a known failure that can be experienced at 150k miles. Basically stated
how to diag the problem which my friend did. He seen the same readings where the amount of resistance at a specific point was so high it supposedly indicated all the modules like the PCM etc.. were all burned out because of something to do with the steering column. The dealer wanted 8k to replace all the modules and said there was no guarantee the problem would be fixed because the entire steering
column would also have to be replaced bring the price up. Needless to say, I let my mechanic sell the car in parts and had to say goodbye to my best friend. I issued a legal complaint to this company that gets you money back for problems like this but I never heard back from them. A friend of mine got 3k back on his Toyota Camary for some issue. Sorry i dont have good news. I still think there was a small chance the problem was something different but the Service posting in the all data database kinda sealed the deal. Companies should not be allowed to sell a car knowing these issues exist. I was expecting to hold onto this car for a long time. People saw the car and thought it was a fairly new car yet it was a 2006.

Hi Eric, The problem you are referring wouldn't happen to be the 'Access Start Authorization J518 Module'? IF you wouldn't mind sharing that post you are referring to about failure at 150k miles because guess what, my a6 is literally miles away from that so would give me a lot of insight about it. I do have a strong feeling about it being the J518 module under the steering specifcally. Im just trying to gather as much information as i can right now. Thank you and feel free to PM me if easier.

The info about the 150k Catastrophic failure was not a post. My mechanic had access to a database called All data (i believe) and he saw a service bulletin regarding this problem in which Audi stated there was a 40% chance of a catastrophic failure at 150k miles that matched the diagnostic symptoms I was experiencing. I could only trust and believe this was all accurate and on the up and up. He had no reason to snow me. He actually called the dealer on my behalf and they suggested replacing all the computers and steering column. So im assuming they knew exactly what the issue was and would have taken 8 hours to diag the issue b4 giving me the bad news (which is y I took the car back after the 1st few). The resistance readings the mechanic took were very high (suggesting a complete meltdown somewhere on the steering column (probably the J518 as u suggested) and matched what the service bulletin stated. I cant tell u where those test points were and since its been 4 years, I have lost touch with him. He closed shop and re-opened and I have no way of contacting him for details. Sorry I couldnt be of further assistance.

Hey no worries. Appreciate the response! your comments were still useful in learning what happens in these higher mileages. thanks again!

Just for the record. The car had been running perfectly. The day this happened, I started the car and it started very strangely out of the blue. Out of sync, struggling to idle, then it smoothed out after giving
it gas a bit getting the RPMs up. . I drove it 2 minutes down the road to get gas and shut the car off. Never started again!