So I hopped in my car this morning to drive to work and noticed that I'd left my left turn signal on when I turned my car on. At first, I didn't think anything of it. Doesn't seem like that should cause any problems right? Well, I think I opened up that circuit for the entire evening and overcharged the hell out of some of the capacitors somewhere in there and those things are releasing charge in a strange manner.

The screen in the center of my gauge cluster that displays temperature, MPG, etc, was completely black this morning, worked for about 2 minutes when I was driving to the gym at lunch, flashed completely red for a second, then went black again. There's a strange static kind of sound coming from my speakers that kind of disappeared when I turned on my signal for a minute, but came back full volume at lunch. I tried turning my lights on, hoping they were somehow wired into the circuit in a manner that would dissipate some of that built up charge, but they made the static louder.

Has anyone else encountered this before? I don't know what to think about it. It seems like something that might eventually take care of itself. I love when cars just miraculously heal. It doesn't happen often, but I'm hoping this is one of those cases. Any ideas? I was thinking about leaving my hazards on for a while, too.

 

Never seen that before on an audi, i have seen if before on a Ford, it was a loose main ground behind the drivers side kick panel. I would have the codes pulled before doing anything else, you may need access to a volt meter to diagnose this as well.

 

Weak. I'm going to plug in my VAG-COM when I get home to see if it picks anything up. I can most likely snag a voltmeter from work to check into this a little deeper if needs be, but I really don't want to deal with the electrical crap. Mechanical stuff I don't mind, but wiring scares the hell out of me. There's just so much that go horribly wrong if you misread your schematics.

 

Don't worry, its pretty simple when it comes to electrical. The more systems that go crazy in an electrical problem, the easier it is to diagnose.

 

That gives me some hope. Is this something you think my VAG-COM will catch or am I going to have to trouble shoot this on my own? It'd be great if I could pinpoint the problem immediately.

 

No, the vag com is gonna give you probably 10-20 faults, but the faults will make it easy for me to look at the wiring diagram and pin point where you should look.

 

Awesome. I'll make sure to post good notes about what I find. Thanks in advance for your help man. I really appreciate it. That buzz is really annoying. The center display I'm not nearly as concerned about, but I can't listen to any music without heavy distortion in it to mask the buzz.

 

Ok... it turns out that the VAG-COM I bought from ebay doesn't work. I've tried it with 311 or 312 and 409 and 409 seemed to work, but I guess it's not connecting with my OBD II. I thought I'd run a successful check before but apparently I was wrong. I need to get this hammered out before I can generate a list of error codes to interpret. Hopefully I'll be back soon with more information.

 

In the meantime, pull out the radio using the radio removal keys, then un-plug the hazard switch connector. This will disable the turn signals, but it should also eliminate the static noise from the speakers.

 

The static has either gone away or dissipated enough that I no longer hear it. The gauge cluster screen looks like it's slowly coming back too. I'm still holding onto hope that this might heal itself. Is there anywhere I can squirt some neosporin to help expedite this process? Seriously though, do you think it might have something to do with me using my turn signals everyday and thus dissipating any built up charge from leaving the signal on all night?

I'm still not sure how much sense that theory makes, but it's all I have until I get my fake VAG-COM to work, if I ever do...