VAG-COM & OBD Badness (Not S2)

[S2central.net]

To cut a long story short I'm looking for some help, ideas or BTDT info...

Car is a 2001 A6 Allroad (C5). I had to change the turn signal & cruise stalk today. It had been causing some havoc with the relay module behind the hazard switch (which I thought was at fault first of all). But today the indicators stopped working - just stuck on, so the stalk had finally died completely.

So with the assistance of an inconsistent / almost useless Bentley & Elsa manuals I set to it -

- Battery Off
- Airbag off
- steering wheel off
- steering position sender off
- Wheel trim off
- connectors off
- stalk off

Refitted everything up to point of airbag and reconnected the battery - indicators, lights and all working. Only issue is the airbag light on of course - easy to clear with VAG-COM you'd think.

So - careful again, battery off, airbag reconnected and battery back on - reset clock and in we go to get the laptop to clear that airbag fault code.

Just last week I moved my VAG-COM license onto a new laptop (after killing the trusty old one) - this one is USB but I had successfully tested a RS232 adapter with it on the S2 - worked a treat so great stuff.

Plugged it into the Allroad and its flaky as anything - it only talks to the ECU reliably. I tried several settings on the logical COM port and whatever tweaks VAG-COM would allow but it always fails to talk to the Airbag... So I figure I'll borrow a proper USB adapter from a mate at the weekend.

I reverse the car out of the garage for a short trundle round the park to make sure all is well (and the wheel is still straight ahead) - as soon as I put the thing into DRIVE (its Tiptronic) the dashboard lights up like a christmas tree complaining about the ABS, ESP and PLC.

Now I know I reconnected all the connectors - there was actually three on that steering wheel position sensor. Are they known to be problematic ?

Do I have to run thru some procedure to recalibrate the steering sensor cos its been refitted - is that why its pushing all the alarms up ?

I'm well peeeed off with it - spent buckets on it in December, just changed the front brakes last week and in addition to this PITA it decided the drivers side window would also stop working this week. Pheckin cars - I hate them - its freeezing out there.

Any ideas before I try and gleam more from the kak manuals ?
I actually think the older manuals are better than the new style of info on ELSA - then again I suppose they are just intended to be a reminder for the Audi techs that have
been on the official training programmes... You need to do a job once or twice to really understand what the manual is trying to remind you. Sorry I digress...

Hope someone has some insight - either on the cause of all these alarms - or a sneaky fix for the USB to Serial problem.

Paul

[pastures16]

sorry paul cant help you with this and you are the master of vag com

[ericd]

You logged the errors after it lit up like a xmas tree ?, It's been a while since I've looked at something built in this century with vag-com, but IIRC there is a factory/dealer reset/setup option in there somewhere , must be worth a shot if you can find it ?

[quattronutter]

sounds like a weird one,i would double check all the connections behind the wheel just to be totally sure there is no fault there,try accessing each control module from vag com to see if this throws anything up....

[S2central.net]

Well - half a glass of wine later and I think I know what I've missed - in the kak Bentley manual the very last step of refitting that steering position sensor is over the page on its own so I've missed that - just felt like I had refitted it properly, but sure enough there are some alignment points which I was unaware of. A R S E - oh well I'll finsh this wine, get some Bushmills down me gregory, watch a bit of Liza then venture out again later... Two TX30 nuts gets me at that bad boy for alignment and then I only have the Airbag lamp to worry about until reinforcements arrive with a proper USB cable.

I love it really

Paul

[s2driveruk]

lol good luck resolving.....my a6 decided to return to its coolant drinking habit today, one which cost me £2.5k 18months ago. Thankfully i found this time rather than ingesting it, the coolant is escaping by one of the seals, I think where the thermostat is, either that or the funny oil cooler box under the filter

Looks like a nice job with tons of feed and retun pipes all over the AJM engine

[shark_90]

Paul I've not got much on the C5 A6 but there's not much about the B6 and B7 A4 that I don't know. Did you put it all back together apart from the airbag and then test? Or did you leave any other components off? What was the last step of the refitting instructions?

[S2central.net]

The bit I missed was where it showed physically aligning some location holes on the wheel position sensor at the straight ahead position. I've since found info at Ross-Tech on how to do this 'Basic Setting' of the wheel sensor - which I suspect is more meaningful and important than the alignment holes shown in the manual.

The stupid Bentley manual states you have to do the basic setting, but doesn't tell you how - I swear that Bentley just cover the minimum nowadays so that Audi dealerships still get lots of work to do. I've found some folk on Audiworld saying it costs $700 to change that part at a US dealer franchise - its maybe a $300 part and 1 hours work for the slowest hands in the world.

Paul

[S2central.net]

All fixed now... interplanetary alignment has now been restored

There is a dippy little yellow spot that has to align in a window on that steering wheel position sensor. Then you have to run the calibration sequence on VAG-COM when its all back together again. All alarms staying off and the indicators are flashing again. Bonkers... All done in about 30 minutes - easy with a proper serial cable - that USB converter was a waste of time.

Think I'll have to dig deep for a proper HEX-USB+CAN cable - may as well ride the conversion rate

Paul

[Lloyd]

Hi Paul,

Not sure if this is related in a sense, but I took the dash out over the weekend to fit a new bulb. On re-fitting everything, my airbag light is now on permanently.... Is this just a case of vag com to remove the light or is there more to it along the lines of aligning the circular steering wheel sensor which sits just behind the wheel it self?

Will this bit of kit fix it?

http://www.carbulbs-direct.com/u280-...anner-34-p.asp

Many thanks,

[S2central.net]

There is no steering wheel sensor on the S2/RS2 (thank goodness).

You just need VAG-COM to clear that fault on the airbag controller - its picky about that stuff. Only way I know to avoid such a fault is to diss the battery before you remove the cluster before the airbag controller gets all worried about thinking a lamp is out.

[shark_90]

That's quite amusing. The airbag controller thinks that the airbag warning light has blown.. so it illuminates the airbag warning light. Genius!

[S2central.net]

Well yes it is a bit of daft logic, but the airbag stores the alarm so that it can be retrieved with VAG-COM or at the stealers. If the warning lamp really has blown then it would otherwise be a silent failure.

In saying that, I'm surprised that Audi didn't invent some other stupid interface that flashes your windscreen washers in the event of such a crisis.

That Allroad cracks me up sometimes - it has more raw computing power than the ferkin space shuttle but less common sense than a lemming. I suppose the Audi Q7 bristles with even more computing power such that it displays 'The sky is falling' on an LCD display everytime it has something to complain about.

[Acidburn]

it has more raw computing power than the ferkin space shuttle but less common sense than a lemming.

true, but you have to think of the people who programmed it like this tho.

[Lloyd]

http://www.carbulbs-direct.com/u280-...anner-34-p.asp

I've bought one of these as it can easily cancel the codes.

Where do I plug it in btw?