Audi A3 E-tron Forum and Electric Vehicle News

when you have such problems, it's best to find a passionate local ev shop who can diagnose the car properly.

Dealerships do not have the experience nor the patience required

On Friday night I went to charge my car (a 2017 a3 e-tron I bought a month ago), ready for a long drive on Saturday to visit my Dad for the 1st time for a year or so.

I can't remember if I had left the door open when I plugged in the charger, but my car pinged at me and gave me the

'Drive System fault! Safely stop vehicle.'

message, followed by

'Max. engine speed: 3000 rpm'

And the charger light on the car went red (the charging unit still said charging).

When I tried to start the car after unplugging the charger it would not go into ready mode. So effectively dead car.

Got my daughter to drive me down in her little suzuki, then Yesterday morning, I gave Audi Roadside Assistance a call, assuming after what I read here, It was likely to end up with my car being towed to a dealer.

An hour later Audi Roadside Assistance turned up. Plugged his computer in, and was puzzled that my car was not showing any fault code.

did some searching, and then said that it was a common fault with the ECU and that there was a patch to fix it.

He connected a battery pack to make sure it didn't run out of power half way through and spent 15 mins downloading and installing the patch.

After which he said, 'looks fixed, the hybrid battery is now charging you're 12v battery which it wasn't before'

And I now have a working car, so far everything seems fine, so will just have to see.

Hi everyone,
I’ve just been through this experience myself, and have finally got my car back after almost 3 months of it living at the dealership. 2017 a3 etron technik with 84k kms.

Had to be towed, I got the same range of “everything is broken” from the dash out of the blue one day. First diagnosed as the small auxiliary battery failing, it quickly became apparent that the issue was much more severe. They attempted to replace the control module but ultimately had to replace the ev battery as well. Many delays and disappointments later I went in to pick up my beloved hybrid and return the a3 loaner that I’d gotten quite used to -except for the big gas tax.
In the end they tried to get me to pay for the auxiliary battery but I pushed back. I’m currently in limbo waiting on my Q4 order made back in the summer.. If I had gotten my vehicle as promised this issue would not have been mine. There is a silver lining though because I had definitely seen some range loss in the neighborhood of 15% but have returned to the kind of range I used to get a few years ago.

I’m starting to think this is a major defect possibly relating to the charging system. I noted a year or two ago, and have seen others on this forum also report the charging light continue to run well after the vehicle being fully charged. My car no longer does that, just like when I first got it.

Ian

Hello I have just got a "electrical system: fault" warning message. does anyone happen to know what this might be? Auxiliary battery? or?

Thanks

Daniel