Electrical Gremlins have entered my A8.. that or an apparition!!
 

Alright.. this is going to sound bizarre, but I swear to all of you I have not eaten any mushrooms or licked any stamps today!

I have had 3 bizarre electrial gremlins plaguing my A8.. and I'm PRaying someone can shed some light.

1.) The other day both cig. lighters stopped working. I doublechecked the safety button on the door and then wiggled around the cord to my cell phone charger to make sure it was making contact. Nothing.. Then I checked the fuse panel and low and behold the fuse was blown!I pulled the fuse, and before I had a chance to put in a new one, my coworker plugged my same phone charger back into the lighter and now it works?? There is no fuse in the (supposed) location.. I even doublechecked? How can this be?

2.) The Climate control this morning was set to auto at 75 degrees. The fan went on high like normal, came down to about 3 bars and slowly started creeping up to 4 bars .. than 5 bars.. before I had to turn the AUto off because it was FREEZING in the car!

3.) After I turned the AUTO off, and lowered the manual adjust to 1 bar, it was fine for a couple of minutes, and then with no outside adjustment by me.. went to 2 bars!! Mind you that the AUTO is off now!

WHat gives??? Anyone seen weird stuff like this before?

RE: Electrical Gremlins have entered my A8.. that or an apparition!!
 

Ha ha, seen it, don't know what to say.

The cigarette lighters are weird in my 97 A6 too. Never messed with the fuses, but sometimes they won't work or the back one will and not the front one. Usually they come on when I turn the key on though (like they are off, I turn the key to on, then they are fine for however long even if I turn the key back off)

As for the Climate controls, Yeah not a clue, mine takes over all the time. Even in manual mode, it will decide it is time to be auto. I always seem to have the freeze out problem when I have the defrost on it will randomly go from 3 to full to 3 again. Oh and the best one is when I turn it completely off and then like 2 minutes later it turns back on.

Anyone got a clue? I thought it seemed weird.

RE: Electrical Gremlins have entered my A8.. that or an apparition!!
 

With mine it's the cruise control. Sometimes works, most times NOT. Whan it does work I feel like I've hit the lotto... Then it'll cut out, mid cruise, for no apparent reason. Trunk release button is opposite. Usually works, sometimes NOT. Not sure why. NOW, the drivers headrest (which generally stay UP) won't adjust at all. The rear passenges-side one works intermittently. Then there's the sunroof, which sometimes opens up ALL BY ITSELF after it closes when I turn the knobby-thingy. I mean, it CLOSES!!! THEN, opens up again! But I read somewhere that that is due to a dirty track, so I'll clean it, eventually, and see if it stops misbehaving...

RE: Electrical Gremlins have entered my A8.. that or an apparition!!
 

My Girlfriend's 03' Passat had the Sunroof issue, but I've been lucky so far I guess that the climate control is the only 'usual' problem.

Here is a list of the usual and infrequent electronic problems plaguing the A8..

1.) Climate Control does whatever the hell it feels...(see above string)
2.) Sometimes the right from HID headlight turns itself off for no reason and then the light warning goes on. To remedy, I turn off the headlights and turn them back on and they've been fine. A little disheartening though!
3.) The other day I was on a hill and had the brake depressed, Once I tryed to get going, the car conked out! It just killed the engine in drive! I Put it in park, set the emergency brake and started the ignition again and it ran fine?!?!
4.) Cigarette Lighters work some days, and not others, even though I have never replaced the fuse?!?

Anyone seen these or other weird electrical gremlins?

Check This One Out
 

Last weekend, my wife's A8 refused to start...just cranked and cranked. Disconnected the battery for a couple hours and it started. While trying to get into the trunk to disconnect the battery, I noticed the trunk button wasn't working (first time for that). Well, it started but refused again later that day. So I started it with ether and drove home where I OBD'd it and got no codes. It refused to start again and I hooked up the scanner and got P0322 which is the "engine speed sensor" (more commonly referred to as the crankshaft position sensor). Meanwhile, the trunk button still didn't work. I replaced the crank sensor last night, started the car and the trunk button works now. Coincidence...I think not!

I'm thinking of opening an Exorcism service for VAG cars! We won't guarantee anything we do wil actually FIX teh problem, kinda like teh Stealership, but, just liek teh stealers, we'll happily take large amounts of your money.

Here is how we will charge (pretty much teh same way the stealers decide what to charge) for our services:

- Large wheel with mumbers from 1 - 9 on it, and a little pointer/clicker-thingy to point to whichever number is at the top of the wheel.
- Spinn the wheel.
- which ever number the pointer-thingy points to...
- Add "-Hundred dollars" to the end.
- As in: 9-Hundred dollars to Exorcise your car, Sir.
- Thank you.
- Have a nice day.
- See you again, tomorrow!

I have had crazy intermittant elec. gremlins with '98 A6 2.8 Quattro for years. When it's 80+ degrees outside, suddenly the heat is on instead of cooling, when it's 50 outside the system, which has been set for a comfortable 72 suddenly starts blowing cold air. Had my Audi mechanic look it over a couple times, couldn't nail down a cause or fix.
For several months, my trunk would unlock itself. You'd be cruising down the road and the trunk would unlock. I'd lock the car in a parking lot and as I was walking away, the trunk would unlock. Then it started locking and unlocking, 4 or 5 cycles all by itself. Totally weird. Stopped doing it and no idea what changed.