My ESP yellow Indicator came on while I was driving. I pressed the switched to turn it back on but nothing happened. I did noticed that when shifting into drive the car would do a HARD jerk into gear and the engine would would start to rise up and down between 200 and 1200 rpm's. Now I'm in a rush to get back home, I shifted to manual mode and accidently got the rpm's up to around 4000 in first gear, shortly after that the esp indicator went out and it appears to driving normally. My questions is, should I be looking to replace some thing and if so, what? 02 A4 3.0 Quattro. thanks guys for ANY help i can get on this as I am confused. no other maintenance has benn done to the car other than changing the air filter.

 

Check that you have no brake lights out this can cause an issue with the ESP if not that then it might be the brake switch that live down by the pedals and is a cheap part to swap out.

 

wild

I read another thread on here that also points to the wheel sensor might be dirty...sorry I don't have a link...

I've had the light come on mine maybe twice in the life of it so far, but never had any driving issues as you describe...next time I started the car, light wasn't on anymore. switch seems to work fine for now. good luck

 

maybe it's the MAF because your RPM is raddling and your ESP light come and go?
just another opinion out there.

 

It will continue to come and go until you replace the brake light switch.

 

What do you mean by brake light switch? I brought my Audi in for body repair and they had to disconnect the battery to put a new headlight housing in. There's a code for the headlight on the dash that the body shop says I need to bring to an Audi Dealer to reset, but the ESP warning light is on now too (and wasn't before bringing it in.) Is there an easy fix?

Thanks!

 

Your brake light switch is on the brake pedal, there's some threads on vortex with pictures on how to pull it out. Also the ESP light is on probably becaus of the work they did on the car. You can read the Code with any OBD-II scanner, the Dealerships have a tool called VAGcom, most of us have it too, with that you cna read graphs and limits to see exactly what's failing.

I would try to change the brake light switch first, then reset the code, then see what happens, if the fault persists, you need to look at the DS headlight, right behind it, the ABS sensor sits there, if the ABS sensor fails, your ESP fails, but there will be a code for it.

 

Thanks, Dan. The ESP light went out on its own after a restart. Still have to go to the dealer for the headlamp warning reset, though. Thanks for your valuable info.

 

thanks guys. I'll change that switch and see what happens

 

i had my battery disconnected when i was replacing the valve cover gasket/plugs and when i finished up this morning i started it and the deisel sound it was making was much quieter but the ESP warning light came on and stayed on, ive yet to start it up again (the bell rang for class) but ill be back to see if it goes away on its own or if it persists