I have a 98 A4 1.8T QM. It has 76k miles on it so far. I just went to start it tonight and it made a whinning noise and didn't start up. I thought it might be the battery at first but it showed a good charge. I still hooked it up to my brothers truck and after a while on the jumper cables it finally turned over. I let it run for a while then drove it for about 5 miles. After returning home I turned it off and started it again a few times and it started up fine. What do you think could have caused that first problem? Starter? Alternator? Any one else have a similar issue, or is there a large reaccuring issue like this?

Thanks,
David

 

when you say the battery tested good... how did you test it? Did you actually load test it, or it had 12.66v and you call it good?

 

I didn't do a load test on it. My guage read at least 14v and all electronics worked fine, so this led me to believe that the battery had a good charge, I could be mistaken however.

 

Check your fusible links, specifically anything related to charging and/or starting. Don't just look at them, because they can blow and not be visibly apparent that they're blown. Take them out and measure them. You may have a blown link that is preventing your battery from charging. The jumper charge you got may have refreshed the battery enough to help you out for now, but eventually it will die down. Another idea is that the alternator is going out on you (go to Auto Zone or someplace like that for a load diagnostic - it's free and only takes a few minutes - that'll tell you if the charging system is OK).

If none of this solves the problem, you may have a short somewhere in the car that is draining power slowly, so that over time your battery loses enough voltage that your car won't start. The responsible system can be found pretty easily. Remove the negative battery cable, and rig up a small automotive light bulb between the cable and the negative battery terminal, so that the system is still closed, but with a bulb between the neg cable and neg termnal. If you have a drain somewhere, the bulb will be lit up, since the drain is causing current to be drawn from the battery. Now, remove one fuse at a time. If you remove one, and the bulb remains lit, that particular circuit/system is not responsible for the drain, so put it back. If you remove a fuse and the bulb goes out, you've found the culprit. Look into which system that fuse protects, and then you have to troubleshoot that system. It's a good idea to do all the fuses, even if you find one right off the bat. You may have two or more fuses that, when any are pulled, will stop the current drain. That can mean that you have more than one problem, but it could also point you in the direction of the problem, since a lot of the time certain systems are fused by more than one fuse.

To build your bulb tester, just solder a couple wires onto the bulb terminals of something like a 168 turn signal bulb (something easy and cheaplike that), and wrap one around the neg terminal of the battery (maybe hold it in place with a jumper cable clamp) and tightly wrap the other around the neg battery cable clamp. You'll find that this can narrow down a power drain pretty quickly, at least to circuit or system level (ie, headlight circuit, or alarm circuit, etc). From there, you have to spend the time troubleshooting, but it will at least get you into the neighborhood pretty quickly.

 

If it didn't sound like the motor was turning and only had a whinning noise I would guess that you are missing a tooth in your flexplate (auto tranny) or flywheel (manual tranny). It generally happens intermittantly only when the missing tooth lands at the same spot as the ring gear on the starter.

 

I had the same problem and all i had was an empty cell on the battery, filled it up with distilled water and worked fine. I had to jump start mine everyday that i didn't at least startthe car once or twice