Sid2020

Sometimes you get what you pay for so I wouldn’t think about the part prices but as you say, makes you feel good when you do the job yourself

Glad it’s all sorted

Bumper off, antenna fitted and bumper back on I’d say 1.5hrs max, calibration 30mins. What Audi charge I could only guess

This is where it gets tricky, if you have blind spot assist this comes under a driver assistant system and as Audi states it needs recalibrated they will Resist not doing it for liability reasons which is totally understandable from a dealer point of view. The con is that all it involves is putting the car into calibration mode and a brief 10 min drive

In some Scandinavian countries they have a socket in the front bumpers so they can have them plugged in easily to keep a cabin heater running due to the outside temperatures so always worth investigating

Pretty normal for a smallish car, your car will be on the light side so easily affected by wind and passing traffic

There’s a red/purple antenna behind the rear bumper, fitting new one should be plug and play but if you have blind spot assist the rule Book says this needs to be calibrated if the rear bumper is removed and replaced/refitted, in the real world you will be fine, the system is not very precise like a front radar

Never came across a aftermarket airbag and never want to either, will be Audi or eBay for it I’d say

Hard to tell with out actually having the car and airbag in front, airbags don’t typically need coding in just airbag modules so you should be fine, you get single stage and twin stage airbags so would need to make sure that you get the correct type for your car but likely to be only one, small black plug looks like horn ring

Be interesting to know what they come back with

Sorry I got lost in the conversation and thought you had electro hydraulic

A whine at full lock that was not previously there could either be a drop in fluid level or steering pump nearing the end of it life but you should avoid holding a hydraulic steering system at full lock as it puts a lot of strain on the pump

Did your parking sensors deactivate when you plugged in your caravan as they should if it was coded and wired correctly. No fogs on your car makes me think that someone has made a mess of wiring in the tow socket

I would be inclined to rule out mechanical components and start to think electrical, what components could affect boost to that degree, boost solinoid as would think it has a VNT turbo but this is controlled by the ecu. Is it a Bosch edc16 ecu as these are notoriously crap and used across lots of manufacturers on diesels. Lots of ecu repairer websites offer symptoms that may match what you experience. What if you turn your ignition on for 10 seconds and then back off removing the key and then start, does it run fine or does it physically need to start for a few seconds before the 2nd start

When you say start the car twice how long is it running the first time, a short trip or 10 seconds, need to know for possible component heating

You can always pull the bumper and go direct to sensor plug testing, will have 3 wires per sensor, typically wires 1 and 3 will be 12v and earth with wire 2 the return signal wire, all sensors share the same earth and live feed, signal wires will have seperate color coding on them back to the main plug so continuity testing is quite simple

If you ain’t getting a sensor fault like the front then you need to establish power supply to module and to sensor loom first, then move from that stand point onto sensors

Modern diesels are a bit of brilliant engineering but are not suitable for short trips or town driving, I’ve recently spent several weeks in Europe getting trained on a certain brand of electric car and I must say that when I need to give up my diesel il be going non German full electric

With a voltmeter just pin out the back of the plug that exits the box and heads out the cars rear thru a grommet. Find your earth wire first and test that’s good. Then using that with one lead work then the other and one will/should have 12volts, the other wires are signal wires and usually carry slightly lower voltage that changes with sensor detection. If you have an earth and 12v output which might only be supplied for a few seconds as the car will shut down the outputs once it detects a fault. The next step would be rear bumper removal and check the wiring and plugs for damage or water ingress

From memory it’s in the drivers side qter panel, slim black box with beige plugs

Glad you’ve found a solution to get around the problem

I also wouldn’t pay Audi for adblue, it’s such a basic product and all you need to make check is that ISO22241 is in the container

I would be looking to test the voltage supplied to the module before doing anything else

That’s the warning to the driver that the system is not active

Sounds like you just got unlucky, ask around for a good independent garage that deal with vw/audi for future work as will charge atleast half the hourly rate, have the same software and possibly Pass on abit of parts discount and be open to recoding second hand parts when suitable.