Audi S8 D2 Indicators stopped working
 

Ive owned my S8 d2 40v for a few years now and apart from oil change and brake pads its been very reliable, I do have an electrical drain somewhere which is as of yet undiagnosed, I ended up buying a battery cut off switch which solved the problem for the mean time!

More recently I noticed that the passenger side carpet gets soaking wet (right hand drive car) probably due to the usual drain hole problem which I need some decent weather to address, and I went out the other day and noticed that my indicators have stopped working, the Hazards work fine but no indicators!

I noticed that the wooden panel under the glove box was wet and the water runs down onto the carpet and am wondering if any of those relays have anything to do with the indicators, ive heard that the indicator relay is under the steering wheel however are there any other relays on passenger side that could of got wet hence indicators stopped working?

Any advice is Greatly appreciated.

Beneath that wooden board are a lot of important relays and electrics. If water is getting in there, then that could be the cause of both your indicators playing up and the battery drain since there is a major always on 12V supply beneath. You really need to get to work on fixing the leak and drying out the electrics before they become too coroded and you need to start replacing wiring and connections.

^ what he said! ^ the water getting in needs sorting ASAP, that box of elastictrickery really needs to be dry and clean otherwise you will end up with a collection of electrical gremlins.

It will depend which drain is blocked. There are several.

Get a torch out and have a peer down into the scuttle. On the passenger side between the cover of the ECU box and the central air intake there's a gap with various pipes and the auxiliary water pump that you can see past. Or on the drivers side unclip the cover on the wiper motor area and look down under the air intake. If water is pooling there it's a right pain to resolve and overflows into the cabin. This CAN be the source of huge amounts of water.

The commonest problem is the aircon drains inside the cabin, which "seem" to overflow more on the passenger side, though they're symmetrical in theory.
The passenger side one is easier to clear as there's less to remove so start there.

But first take the front mats and carpet out (both sides) and start mopping up, then remove the "plank" and dry that out too - it may or may not be screwed down depending if it has been taken out before. The carpets soak up massive amounts of water as you'll soon discover.
Old towels come in handy. ;)

Just hope its not the "Botangs Hole" letting water in, to fix that you need to remove the ECU box which is not very straight forward.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3281

Hey - agree with the others on clearing the water currently in the car and investigating the source of the leak as that's likely to continue.

http://youtu.be/STMCwA96VfI

This video might help just to show how the bulk head drains can clog and how it clears when you unblock it. A simple water jug/hose test underneath the scuttle will tell you if they are clear or clogged...water should be free flowing from the gearbox area under the car.

Hope you get it sorted soon!

Oli

Just don't pour too much water into the scuttle! :eek: I'd look first, it should be dry with no standing water.
If it's blocked it will almost all end up inside the car (as mine did!) adding to your woes. :o

Most probably it's Botang's hole.

In this particular case water will not get into the box with wooden cover, but it'll be dripping right into indicator relay. That relay is located **above** the box with wood cover. Just get on your knees and look under glovebox above passenger's footrest (no need to remove glovebox). There is an additional relay panel a bit to the right and above the passenger footrest. Relays in that panel are located a bit upside down, so if water is dripping on them it will effectively stay in casings damaging relays completely.

So, just remove all relays one by one from that panel (no need to remove anything from car -- the panel is directly accessible with bare hands). With a couple of knives/screwdrivers open case of each relay and if you find water just swap relay with a new one.

Of course, fix the Botang's hole before putting new relay in:

There's is a piece of sticky paper under a layer of mastic/paint above a hole that peels off eventually and allows water into passenger footwell area. On RHD car access is restricted by electric box. It is possible to fix the hole without removing the box, you will need long tweezers, heat gun or hairdryer, methylated spirit or industrial adhesion promoter and high quality silicone or any industrial grade glue (Soudaflex is good stuff) in a cylindric cartridge, extra long nozzle for the cartridge, and a silicone applicator gun.

Pictures of the hole on LHD car. Same on RHD car, but with more difficult access because of the electric box.

Piece of paper is hiding under paint/mastic:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1389551330

Partially removed:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1389551330

Fully removed:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1389551330

Incredible, piece of paper.
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1389551330

The damp / wet on the passenger side does make strange things happen, indicators fail, electric windows have a mind of their own and sunroof won't do as it's told. I found most times if you turn off the at the key and back on it would sort it's self, apart from the windows forget their calibration and need to go to the bottom and top before the auto would work again.

First things first! Why not start with the drain in the wheel arch? It takes seconds to reach up and give that a squeeze, so you don't have to wait for good weather. If that's the problem, all you have to worry about is getting the car dried out. The passenger side one is the most common of all the drains to get blocked on my car for some reason.

As rain water scuttles from the windscreen it travels **via** Botang's hole area to those wheel arch drains. In fact, water falls from windscreen right into Botang's hole. Cleaning wheel arch drains won't save him if Botang's hole is leaking.

Found the problem
 

Thanks for all the advice guys its Greatly Appreciated, there are so many good people on this site offering advice and trying to help and Im Very Thankful,

I found the problem which was the 191 relay, and as Notorious said the water is defo going onto the relays behind the glove box, the ones behind the wooden panel seem fine but the others had water on them and the 191 flasher relay was full of water and rusted like a mo fo!! lol

So ive ordered one off ebay for a few quid and im thinking to try and cover the whole relay box with maybe a plastic bag to prevent the water going onto the relays until I can sort the drain problem out, just to prevent this happening again and also damaging more relays etc.

Have you not even had a quick look yet to check out ANY of the possibilities? :-(

What you need to do now:

* Make sure you check **all** relays in that auxiliary plate. On later facelift cars the ABS relay is also on that plate. If it is wet you can expect all kinds of ABS problems soon. Don't try to fix wet relays -- they are kaput -- order new ones.

* Open panel under wood cover and double check there is no water there. Usually there will be no water, but just to be on safe side

* Fix the Botang's hole.

* Dry the car.

>> im thinking to try and cover the whole relay box with maybe a plastic bag to prevent the water going onto the relays

If you do nothing with Botang's hole the water will get to rear seats area because floor is a bit inclined and water will accumulate there. If you wait -- you can have 5+ litres easily under rear passenger feet area (I'm not joking!) since there's a lot of foam under the carpet in the rear. Removing water from there is painful (seats out and carpet out job).

Fix the hole now. Don't think of covering relay box with a bag.

Is Botang's Hole on PF and FL cars? I had a feeling it was just on PF models for some reason

It's on FL cars too. I fixed mine when it started leaking.

Agree except it isn't necessarily (or just) Botangs hole. The source needs to be found and dealt with- it could be the scuttle drains and/or aircon condenser, though the last one would probably come out a bit lower.

If the scuttle drains are blocked water will still get in even if Botangs hole is closed. It takes only moments to check them.

As for quantities of water I had more than 5 litres! The back nearside footwell looked like a footbath.

If water is dripping on indicator relay it's 100% via Botang's hole.

Can't be anything else.

Yes, but it could be getting there due to blocked scuttle drains.

No. It can only drip on indicator relays via Botang's hole. Gravity. The hole is directly above the relay.

No matter because scuttle drains are blocked or because it is raining now and it just drips from windscreen directly on Botang's hole with clean scuttle drains, the bottom line is that water gets into chassis of the car via Botan's hole. Of course, with blocked scuttle drains if water always stays permanently above the level of Botang's hole the paper patch will probably disintegrate faster than during occational rains.

Botang's hole will fail on all A8 D2s. The question is not will it fail or will it not fail. The question is **when** it will fail.

Exactly what I meant, that's why that needs checking too. :cool:

I took out my passenger front carpet ages back and it was soaking, and I dried it out but had to wash the hell out of it due to nasty stink of stale water!!

Anyway I cleaned up all the other water under the carpet and put loads of rags etc to sock up anything else that comes in, actually done that a few weeks back as the water problem has been with my car for some time now, and it doesnt look like alot of water is coming in, it just seems to build up over months so must be a slight leakage coming in and the rear carpets are not wet at all, the main problem obviously is the indicator problem as i cant drive the car safely!

I will address the problem with the pum tang hole or whatever its called lol as soon as I can, did try earlier today but it started ****ing down so had to call it a day, ive also got another facelift S8 which has an oil cooler problem which im also working on same time, Luckily sold my 3rd pre facelift a few weeks ago so now only have the two to worry about but the one im talking about here is my main car, and im stranded without it!! So if I do put the new relay in soon and have not addressed the water issue yet then I think its wise to cover the relays for the meantime just to protect them for more damage!?

For the life of me, I don't understand why you don't start with the easy, 30 second option of checking the drain in the wheel arch!

My simple mind says check the easy things first, especially as that's the drain that blocks most often on my car. I know Botang's hole is a possiblity/probability and I'll be doing mine when the weather improves, but you have a good chance of fixing the problem instantly if you check the wheel arch drain, instead of leaving a wet footwell for days/weeks whilst you pray for good weather.

Get a torch, find the rubber 'teat' at the top rear of the wheel arch and give it a squeeze! :)

Jim, this won't help. Botang's hole is located right below lower edge of windscreen. When it rains water drips from windscreen **directly** into the hole. Because of gravity laws this will happen even with perfectly clean wheel arch drains.

Now from Botangs hole water drips **directly* into indicator relay case. Gravity laws again.

If author of the thread has confirmed that water is inside indicator relay it means that is has got there **only** via Botangs hole. It can't be anything else. In D2 cars water can get into indicator relay only via Botang's hole, which is directly above that relay.

Hope it is more clear now.

The thing that concerns me is that Botangs hole isn't particularly large and I don't see it being the sole source of the amount of water described as being around the carpets, especially if all the drains are working properly.
Hence the suggestion to check elsewhere for blockages, made by me and others. :cool:

Take a bucket of water and drill 5mm hole in it. Fill bucket with water........ :)

But let's be conservative. If 10ml of water gets in per minute that means 14.4 litres if it rains 24 hours per day.

But he doesn't live in Helensburgh! :rolleyes:

I opened the relay and the whole circuit board was brown with rust however I still gave it some WD40 treatment and cleaned most of the rust off and then put it inside the house on top of the radiator and just left it over night,

I swapped the relay from my other S8 onto the mentioned car and indicators started working again as expected (Thank God!!) and then I thought to put the old mangled relay into the other car and to my surprise that works fine aswell now, so looks like you can save these relays in some cases!!

I noticed that there was some water in the same place on the other car aswell and the relay even had some drops of water on it when I took it out so looks like this is very common problem with the Botang holes as Notorious has said, so Im gonna address the problem on both cars in the next couple days and then dry them both out and hopefully thats that sorted!!

I will also check the wheel arch drains as The_Laird has mentioned as you never know these could also be blocked up!

I'd never put back water damaged relays into car.
Even after WD40 treatment +++.

Don't forget to check other neighbouring relays in that plate too.
If your car is late FL you may have ABS relay there also with some water.

P.S. Hole is named after nickname of someone who first discovered it:
http://www.tyresmoke.net/forum/topic/72396-wet-carpet/

Ive ordered a new relay off ebay so for the meantime till that comes, as long as it works thats good enough for me!!!

Now that you have mentioned it, my brakes are very spongy as I was also notified during my last mot by the mechanic at the garage but ive not had any ABS lights on my dash,

however im going to check them to, luckily ive got the 2 cars and ones not being driven at the moment due to needing an oil cooler so I can swap any parts such as relays to check whether they are working or not,

Thanks again for the advice.

With water in ABS relay we will have electric faults and dash panel light. No connectin with spongy brakes here.

Hi Just chanced mine as was have a prob with the hazard lights not flashing

A8 parts ..sent one down and all done in 5min...working fine now...now on to the next job+++

hope it sorts your prob out and all goes well