Parking Brake Fault + drivers door opened itself!

[mstv]

A6 C8. Doing 70mph on M4. All of a sudden, a clunking noise, red "parking brake malfunction contact workshop" error on dash then door open symbol. Driver's door partially opened (as if only latched) and window dropped about 2cm. 

Pulled over. It felt like the door handle was now slightly less "flush" with the door, but could be imagining it. No damage observed anywhere on the car.

Restarted, no errors, no further problems - but obvs. somewhat shaken up by the whole affair. Into dealership tomorrow to insist on safety checks and diagnostic.

Various stuff on the net suggests door control and parking brake modules linked, but this was mightily weird. Any sage advice please?

[Magnet]

Hello Mike,

Sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience, but the good news is that you don’t have to concern yourself with the cause of the issue, or indeed it’s rectification - although it could be of interest to other forum members who’s cars are no longer under warranty. 
Wonder if you would be kind enough to let us know what happens. 
Many thanks and kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Optimus]

I find it baffling that the door could possibly unlatch as this is purely mechanical motion. The door solenoid could unlock the door, but it would not unlatch the door.

to elaborate, there is a double latch lock. When you pull the door to, you engage the first latch and fully closed the second latch. The central locking mechanism has a solenoid that sort of rotates the latch one more turn preventing the lock releasing.

This is a safety feature that prevents doors from opening absent human interaction which has existed in all VW group vehicles from day dot and is unlikely to change even in modern times due to liability claims etc.

the parking brake may not of fully released, and partially stuck. you may not of noticed in an automatic as you tend to in manual vehicles due to resistance when finding the biting point and moving away. 
 

The clunking sound is the pad and disc biting which happened due to friction and the pad and disc reaching a high temperature creating some expansion in the disc.
 

If you pulled over, come to a stop and parked. You may have mechanically reset the electronic parking brake, this can be done by also turning the car off and on.

just on a purely practical assessment of your describe situation this may best explain what happened with regards to the clunking sound. The door opening and window is most likely unrelated. 

on a similar note I have noticed that my windows occasionally drop over time, I’ve had a couple of odd situations where checking on my Audi app my car shows I’m not parked safely and my window is down having just parked. Only I haven’t undone my passenger window for god knows how long. I’ve always thought it had something to do with the tension in the window motor last few turns relaxing over bumps and humps that creates this problem.

 

 

 

 

 

[mstv]

Thanks for the thoughts. The window did drop to the point of wind coming in, the door open symbol was lit. Nothing was wrong immediately prior to this event, and I'd entered and started the car in a well lit controlled environment. This wasn't a poorly shut door. 

It is indeed strange. Audi found some errors in logs related to the door control / door lock mechanism, but confirmed no problems or damage with the parking brake. Both motors operating fully correctly and no damage to any of the mechanism. 

What would explain the door open warning?

[Optimus]

On sleeping on this, it could be a faulty latch. The car has the ability should you forget to put the parking brake on, it will automatically be applied for safety reasons on the car detecting you leaving the car. I don’t know how this works but I assume it requires one or more input, seat sensor, door sensor etc.

if the door latch released, this may of tricked the parking systems controlling module into thinking your leaving the vehicle and then ran through the motions. What’s interesting is that the system tried, even though the car was at 70mph. Or it tried before at a point you was stationary. Implying the latch preventing locking and defective prior to the event?

either way this is a fault that needs thoroughly investigating. I’d start with the latching mechanism.

cold weather does make latches stick, maybe grease up the latch and observe?

[Magnet]

Many thanks for coming back on this Mike, and glad Audi could reassure you that the handbrake mechanism was completely serviceable and fault free. 
Door latching:- is the dealer going to further investigate and rectify this issue - which appears to have thrown up a recorded fault? 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[mstv]

Thanks Optimus, Magnet, yes - the dealership has ordered a replacement unit and intends to fit it next Wednesday. The plot thickens though, as tonight as I was driving just a few miles home from my location station, I had a yellow "Drive System Fault. Please contact workshop" message appear. Stopped the car, turned off, restarted - no further error. 

I've read there are many different reasons for those faults. Interestingly when the lead tech of the dealership showed me the error recorded about the latch, he said that all the other errors on the sytem (including that one) didn't have clear information or time/date data - so I will be interested to see what they find when they investigate this. Probably not related, but who knows!

I will contact them tomorrow (later today) to see whether they can bring the appointment forward as I have a lot of miles to cover this week and would prefer not to get stuck somewhere.

thanks for all the advice!

[mstv]

Follow up. The dealership said that the driver's side door handle needed adjustment - it was fractionally out of alignment, which caused it to not fully return to the flush position. This in turn meant that the mechanism was not 100% engaged, which ultimately led to the latch popping open. This in turn attempted to apply the parking brake (parking brake engages when door opens) but at speed, the brake would not apply. They claimed the same errors led to the drive system warning light as well.

They adjusted the position of the rubber mounts against which the door handle comes to rest, apparently all round the car, which has resolved the issue. In any case, it's under warranty. Will monitor.

thanks for all the thoughts on this one.

[Optimus]

Fantastic - hopefully this fix has resolved the problem for you. As I suspected this has something to do with the lock/latch.

 

[Martin T]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:58 PM, mstv said:

A6 C8. Doing 70mph on M4. All of a sudden, a clunking noise, red "parking brake malfunction contact workshop" error on dash then door open symbol. Driver's door partially opened (as if only latched) and window dropped about 2cm. 

Pulled over. It felt like the door handle was now slightly less "flush" with the door, but could be imagining it. No damage observed anywhere on the car.

Restarted, no errors, no further problems - but obvs. somewhat shaken up by the whole affair. Into dealership tomorrow to insist on safety checks and diagnostic.

Various stuff on the net suggests door control and parking brake modules linked, but this was mightily weird. Any sage advice please?

Had the same problem today ,,door light on , and warning on dash board , hand brake 

[mstv]

Interesting! I'd get it into your dealership soonest and by all means refer them to this post. I expect this is likely some known problem, as I don't see how the dealership would have come up with the fix / solution just from examining the car. Possible, but more likely it's on some kind of internal knowledgebase. So far, the issue hasn't returned. 

Good luck!

[Martin T]

7 hours ago, mstv said:

Interesting! I'd get it into your dealership soonest and by all means refer them to this post. I expect this is likely some known problem, as I don't see how the dealership would have come up with the fix / solution just from examining the car. Possible, but more likely it's on some kind of internal knowledgebase. So far, the issue hasn't returned. 

Good luck!

Thanks

Will pop into Swindon Audi

[Martin T]

On 3/30/2024 at 9:23 PM, Martin T said:

Had the same problem today ,,door light on , and warning on dash board , hand brake 

Audi have replaced the drivers door latch under warranty 

part no. A4K2 837 016 H
 

the car still at Audi checking hand brake .

[mstv]

Fascinating correlation - thanks for providing the update, keep us posted!