Gremlins
 

Hi all

My car has developed a number of gremlins.
I believe it may be something to do with the oil leak I have had resolved recently. The oil must have been leaking down the front and back of the engine and so in the process leaking over the belt and pulleys, including the alternator.

No, for some reason a belt change wasn't suggested to me at the time but it is booked in tomorrow to have this done.

Issues....
The power steer has micro-moments of almost being non-existent.
A failing in the power boot, it is struggling to close and takes 3 attempts and is very slow. Opening not an issue but slower than normal.
The entire dash fails for micro-seconds, going completely dark/black. (especially is on a fast-ish long right hand bend).
The interior lights flicker and pulse with a door open.
The interior light in the boot lid has become very dim and almost not worth having.
I am sure there are other little developments but I cant remember them at the mo!

Anyway, I thought a degrease and belt change could be a cheap-ish logical solution, do you think my logic works! LOL
I replaced the battery about 80k ago.

Seems like some power shortage somewhere, could it be alternator? Hope you get it sorted

I've had the interior lights pulsing every so slightly in mine for a while, and a new battery is on my shopping list.

When I had my [well documented] oil leak one of the techs managed to change the belt in situ rather than removing the front of the car to get to the £20 belt, but small hands and patience are needed, so it is possible to do it like that but far easier to do when other work is being done at the same time.

Re the boot lights, I've changed mine to LED units as they are cheap enough to replace and simply clip in. Same style as the under-door lights.

Hi all

Thanks for the feedback.

The garage dont think it is belt related but more aligned to a CPU/software/power issue and want 2 days to investigate.

I will keep you all in the loop.

New issues

The mileage is now showing SAFE
The parking aids (including camera have failed).
The speedo & rev needle sweep on start up is also crashing/stuttering.

Simply to rule it out, have you checked under the front carpets for any water ingress from blocked sunroof drains?

No I haven't! Good point, every little helps.

A further update.

The previous owner had a Cobra Tracker installed way up into the dash behind the glovebox. Apparently it was still ‘on’ and drawing down heavily on the battery and having an impact on other things. It has been disconnected from the power and all seems better.

Even my auto turning headlight fault went for a while and everything worked fine, but it’s back again!

Carpet was dry by the way.

Nice one! But how did you discover that?

I mentioned to the garage that the media/hard drives etc in the glove-box are really noisy, like a PC hard drive writing data .
They had a look and realised the noises were coming from elsewhere, had a proper poke around and revealed the tracker!

So all good but .......... I am annoyed the 'headlight turning corners' light is back, the flashing and initial BING is very annoying!!!

Is this with the AFS lights? I have an intermittent fault with mine, and is stems from a fracture in the wires inside the headlight unit, caused by light swivelling and the wiring being too tight.

Yes I think that is what my issue is.

There is a fix but it requires a competent person opening the headlight unit up.
I think there is a write up somewhere, I believe the wires are either too short or cable-tied in a place that reduces the slack.

A new headlight will obviously have the same issue but I suppose at least it would work for a few years before fracturing through use..

That's exactly the problem. I had considered replacing the cable tie on my good one, so that there is a bit more slack in the wire. As for the other one, I'd thought of repairing the wiring, but it depends if you could get the connector and wiring out far enough to work on it, without having to take the headlight apart.

Could be taught cables... Although with the same symptoms on mine, it was the headlight control module.

So my gremlins have returned with a vengeance, the entire car cut out for a micro second, lost all power whilst on the M40! I properly sh1t myself!

That is bloody dangerous and not sure really what to do now.

I got home but the electrics are all over the place, central locking, interior & exterior lights, startup sequence, needle sweep, all glitchy. I am thinking either loom damage somewhere or water somewhere.

Where are the drains located again?

Possibly a stupid suggestion, since I know nothing about D3s, but could a bad main earthing point be the cause?

Actually I think you might be on to something. I wonder if there is a test for that?

Battery terminals ok? I had a D2 do something similar when the positive terminal was loose. That blew up the alternator though.

How about that bolted terminal in the footwell that's problematic? Does it have a main power cable feeding in to the electrics box in the passenger side like D2s do?

I'm not sure how you would test for a bad earth. The modules likely wouldn't be able to detect it since they would power down for a moment. There should be a main earth from the battery negative, but I'm not sure how thats done in the D3 with the battery module.

I'd also be searching for the main harness earthing points which are usually under the dash on the A pillars.

It does have a hint of 'nibbled' wiring harness though too.

Very odd.

Could the oil leak have caused some damage to the alternator?

I've seen electrical gremlins manifest themselves through a voltage spike coming from a faulty alternator - a generic OBD reader with the ability to track voltage should be able to map what the alternator is doing.
Plug it in and take the car for a good drive and review the results.

A good clean up of heavy pos and neg terminals would also be a cheap fix if it cures the problem.

Leaking battery - I took the battery out and everything underneath is covered in a light film of battery juice, lots of yellowing and corrosion. The corner of the boot closest to the battery was dampish. The outside of the battery was wet.

Please see photos. Any ideas what those modules are? I have disconnected and checked, visually they look ok.

Do we think I have found the culprit?

I hope this is going to be ok.

Wow, never seen that before. I would put sodium bicarbonate all over it to neutralise it. Does the battery have that 5mm hole in the end that that pipe plugs into like the original? Did it come out?
Do you think it boiled up or is it cracked?

If it has boiled that is indicative of a dodgy alternator regulator. Have you checked the voltage when its running? It should be 14.4 max at the alternator output. Usually that's about 13.8-14.0 by the time it gets to the battery.

I'd expect the battery monitor on the D3 would log a fault for this though so it may simply be physical damage.

Yes to the hole and the black pipe was connected. It doesn’t looked like it has split or cracked anywhere so perhaps as you say, it boiled up!

What I can’t figure out is whether a crazy battery would cause all the electrical glitching? Anyway, at the very least I have to get a new battery so here’s hoping!!

Sorry MJ we were typing at the same time! I can’t check the voltage so wouldn’t know. I imagine that would be resolved via a new alternator?

I just googled the symptoms of a poor alternator regulator and I think that's me! Dimming flickering internal lights, inoperative dash gauges/readings, etc etc

I bet the front of the car has to come off to replace!

Most of the control module (ecu etc) will report battery voltage. However, if the lights are flickering its likely there are fluctuations in voltage which the modules won't show. You'd need an oscilloscope to see that.

I think its all generally pointing to the alternator though. I would expect at the very least you'll need the front end in service position to release the drive belt.

Just had a quote of £880 from Audi to change the alternator regulator. Damn it.

Ouch :eek3: £100 part and most of the day to change it then.

I am sure indie can do it?

An update

So I had the regulator changed in the alternator, I was prepared to replace the entire thing but on the advice of the Indie I just changed the regulator.
Anyway I am a week in and all is good, all gremlins have gone! £450 all in. In fact little electrical niggles that had been annoying me for years have gone so it must have been failing for ages!
Regular headlight bulb failures (but weren’t).
Display inbetween speedo and rev counter taking ages to ‘load’.
Boot lid sometimes not lifting.
Keyless entry/exit issues.

All gone.

I must have the highest mileage D3 S8 on the planet (185k) so good to see she lives to fight another day! I know she has nil value but they don’t put NA V10s in saloon cars anymore so I hope to keep her, I bet i’ll get to 200k by years end.

That sounds positive :) Hopefully she will behave herself now +++