Starting issues, starter motor or something else?

Coldham

Coldham

Member
Hello fellow a2 owners :)

I'm having a bit of a starting issue at the moment, it just won't start lol . I had RAC out and after a proper hard bump start it will go but the normal two people pushing just won't cut it so it seems it needs forcing to get it started.

I had the starter motor replaced two months ago in December, I had a genuine Audi part fitted as I use the car a lot. The starting with the new starter motor was unbelievable it was so different to the old one.

Unfortunately now the cars not starting again, the RAC said its the starter motor, my mechanic said he'll talk to Audi about whether they replace or he as its got a 2 year parts and labour warranty on it. And it turned out audi wanted to do it, it went into Audi for the work to be done but they've said the starter motors fine and its not faulty, so now I'm stuck and it seems back to square one. My mechanic said that when he drove it "the alternator light was slightly flickering and possibly there's a connection issue between the battery and the starter motor/alternator but it exhibits symptoms of a starter motor problem".

The battery is fine and holding charge well, so I guess the alternators not at fault? So where can the issue of not starting be coming from? It had new glow plugs two months ago too so shouldn't be these. Any suggestions would be most helpful :)

Thanks

John
 
Yes, mine was turning over slower when cold, since cleaning the earth up the fault has not re-occured
 
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Yeah sounds like an earth problem had the same issue with mine a few years ago , took it to a local garage who went through just about everything including replacing the whole wiring loom, in the end I had a mobile electrical engineer come out whose first thought was the stater but as soon as he connect jump leads to his van with a decent earth my a2 started, new earth lead fitted not had a problem since
 
Well, I'm glad I found this thread - just wish I'd done it sooner and saved me some money..

So, a month or so ago, car wouldn't start in supermarket car park after a quick 10-20 mins shop. Complete silence when turning ignition on, wouldn't even turn over. But then after several more attempts it just came back to life and started normally. Didn't think much of that because it has been known occasionally to throw up an odd ABS or airbag dashboard warning light whilst driving. Turn the engine off, turn it back on and the warning light is gone. Just a new one of them gremlins I thought, and maybe it's time to start thinking about replacing that 18 year old original Varta battery..

But a week or two later on the way to work, engine began stuttering occasionally and within minutes got worse and finally cut out altogether. When trying to restart, same problem as before - silence, not even attempting to turn over. Tried again and again, but no joy this time. As luck would have it, this happened right outside an independent garage where I had the car MOT'd earlier in the year. Nice people, and happy to run me to work in their van. They ruled out the battery straight away by connecting a spare which had no effect. I left the car with them. A couple of days later they rang me to say my car is fixed, the starter motor was faulty, was a 5-hour job and they fitted a quality OEM replacement, £420 please. Ouch! I was dubious, asked them how a bad starter could have caused the engine to cut out at 30mph? Their explanation was modern cars are like that, things are interconnected blady-blady-bla. And the car was ok again so maybe..

Then a week later, one of those frosty mornings, the car started to turn over - you could hear the starter for a split second, then silence. The exact same fault as before. On this occasion I had time to think and noticed that when ignition key was in position II, all of the dash warning lights were lit up solid except the battery light which was flickering ever so slightly. And in position III it would go out completely but all other lights were unaffected. That to me was starting to look like a poor connection somewhere close to the starter motor. So, I followed the good advice on here, unbolted the starter motor earth cable behind the passenger side head lamp, cleaned up connection surfaces on the cable and the body (there was a thick layer of oxide-like stuff on both surfaces) and put it all back together. It was a pig of a job because of poor access even with the head lamp out. But afterwards, the car started - first time.

So fingers crossed it was cleaning up the earth connection that was the fix, and not some other coincidental tug on a wire/connector somewhere. Time will tell!
 
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