Hax

On their website, it states that if there is no fault found then there is a £45 diagnostic fee to pay. Which still isn't bad as I would be paying £60/hour at the garage anyway. And, as you say, that rules out another potential cause so the garage can then look elsewhere for the problem should it not be the cluster at fault. I sent the cluster off special delivery this morning so it will arrive with them by 1PM tomorrow. So, fingers crossed by Monday or Tuesday (maybe even Friday!) I will have heard something - either no fault found or they found a problem (and then I hope they can fix it!).

Indeed - I don't begrudge paying for the new battery at all. I have been considering changing it for a couple of years now.

The garage I use can not fit me in until Tuesday next week so I have decided to just bite the bullet and go ahead and try the service offered by ECU Testing as I can possibly have a fixed unit back by the time I even get the car to the garage - or at least I will know soon enough if there is no fault and then I can book the car in anyway.

So, I had the new battery fitted today and the problem still persists - sadly 😞 Now to decide on the next course of action - book the car into a local garage for a diagnosis or just send the instrument cluster off for repair... At the moment I'm leaning towards the garage option just to understand what the problem actually is.

Indeed. I've seen people saying a new instrument cluster will be well into 4 figures if bought from Audi. My car is 10 years old so spending that much on a display seems a tad excessive to me! A couple of hundred sounds a fair price to me. I hate that the cluster has to be "coded" to work with the car. It is just a display. I work as a software engineer and have worked on complex CAN bus systems for marine electronics so I know there is no specific need for it to be this way, just a company grabbing money from their existing customer base.

Hi Cliff, yes I have read this and have thought about getting a new battery for a couple of years, but whilst the old one kept going and I had no problems other than the stop/start I just left things as they were - I was tempted to replace in January but thought I would wait until after my service/mot which I had at the end of the month. This new "issue" has prompted me to just bite the bullet. If it doesn't fix the problem then it is not a problem as it was, as I said, something I was considering doing anyway. The new battery from Halfords was the only one recommended when I put the car reg. in and it claims to be for stop/start functionality.

Thanks Steve - sounds like a decent company with a fast turnaround. And much cheaper than having to go direct to Audi!!

Thanks Steve - always nice to have a recommendation and not use blind luck on a Google search!

New battery ordered for fitting on Tuesday. Surprisingly, Halfords price was very competitive compared to EuroCarParts. Plus the Halfords battery comes with a 5 year guarantee - only 3 years offered on the batteries sold by EuroCarParts. Hopefully on Tuesday I will be posting with some good news about this. If not, then I'll be looking for an instrument cluster repairer.

Hi Cliff I've just returned and as expected, no change. Interestingly, in the four years I have owned this car, the stop/start has only ever kicked in maybe 5 times. During this journey, it kicked in twice - the first time it caused a bit of panic as I was worried the car had died completely!! The battery warnings are more prevalent in the really cold weather - it happened last Winter too. Maybe tomorrow I will pop to Halfords and ask them to test the battery for me...

Hi Cliff Thanks for your reply. As far as I can tell, the car is running perfect. I have just driven 12 miles to my office and back again without any problem. There are no signs of water in the fusebox under the bonnet - the question is whether is has managed to get anywhere else. Unfortunately, I don't have a covered area to park in. I found one video on YouTube where someone else had the same problem and after they checked everything out, they read that a low battery can cause this to happen and so took their car on the motorway and the problem "went away". My car has been sat for long periods as I am working from home mostly - but normally I get a message telling me the battery is low - at which point I take the car for a reasonable run. The 24 mile round trip to the office hasn't solved it. I've now left it with the negative battery terminal disconnected for the last 15 minutes - I'll go and reconnect that and if it doesn't fix it I'll go for a short run on the motorway to make sure there is some juice in the battery. Otherwise, I guess I'll be sending the cluster off to one of these repair services. I'll post back if anything changes after my motorway run... Wish me luck! Adam

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I got in my car (a 2012 8P A3) last night, first time after Storm Eunice, and when I started it, the intrument cluster didn't light up as expected I had a series of warning lights illuminated (shown in the photo). The day before everything was working fine and the car was just left parked up during the day of the storm so I'm wondering if it is a case of water being blown in causing a problem somewhere. I have checked the fuses and all look intact to me. The car still starts fine and seems to run OK - I just have no movement in the speed, rev, fuel and temperature gauges and the display is in complete darkness. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Adam