Alarm going off randomly tonight!!!

[hillg81]

Just been doing some work in the house and heard the car alarm going off!
Checked and everything fine so locked the car again and 2 mins later its going off again and again!
Checked all windows and boot and bonnet all closed
Any ideas before it winds me up so much to just sell it!
Got a brand new golf gt tdi for every day use last week so it's not been properly ran for a week but it's been started every day or so and battery is fine also!
Ideas and costly to fix?
Gaz

 

[Jonay]

Ha it been raining a lot recently? Have you been driving the car in it?

Problem ive had and a few other on the 8P is that water gets into the boot microswitch and it sets off the alarm when it "opens". Need to either wait for it to dry out (like I did) or remove the trim and dry put around the switch, spray around the switch with WD40 and hope that's it.

Meanwhile either leave the car unlocked if you trust your neighbourhood or remove the anti theft alarm fuse.

HTH

 

[NHN]

Jonay he has an 8L not 8P.

The issue could be the siren, which is common to have cracked batteries leak over the pcb & require a new siren, it was supserseded to a newer version, check with audi what yours is, do a search on the site as been discussed to death, a vagcom scan should help further aswell to determine if its this.

 

[Jonay]

Jonay he has an 8L not 8P

Oops my bad!

 

[SiGainey]

Mine was doing this this week - just disconneting the battery for 10 minutes sorted the problem

 

[hillg81]

Ive noticed that when you unlock the car the lights flash once and then when you lock the car now they dont flash at all but the car does lock though!

Then a few mins later the alarm goes off!

 

[hillg81]

Jonay he has an 8L not 8P.

The issue could be the siren, which is common to have cracked batteries leak over the pcb & require a new siren, it was supserseded to a newer version, check with audi what yours is, do a search on the site as been discussed to death, a vagcom scan should help further aswell to determine if its this.

vagcom scan???

Its at awesome on wed could they help?

 

[gavin89]

vagcom scan???

Its at awesome on wed could they help?

No point, the batteries defo requires replacing. This is what it look like when opened: (notice the two round batteries)

if you dont replace them, this will happen...

 

[hillg81]

All sorted all it was was the battery a bit flat as it hasnt been ran since the 23rd dec!
Ran it today and it locks and flashes as it should now!

Thanks anyway guys no probs here!

 

[Beardo]

Hi Gaz,

I hope you have indeed got it sorted and the charged battery has sorted it however, (just a hunch)
Blast a few pints of screenwash through your rear screen washer and see if it does it again.

I had exactly the same problem with mine before Xmas (05 Plate A3 2.0 TDI), My alarm kept sounding randomly when i locked the car, sometimes within 10 minutes and sometimes after a couple of hours. I couldn't work out the problem straight away so i left the car unlocked in the garage for a day as i didn't have the time to see to it there and then and it seemed to sort itself out. a week or so later i had the same problem (put it in the garage again which again solved it) This problem came back a few times until i realised it only happened when i had used the rear washer.

The problem was water from the rear screen washer which (when the seal goes) leaks down the inner lining and ends up in the boot lock mechanism. There is a small connector in there which controls the alarm and boot sensor etc which due to the way it's designed catches alot of the excess washer fluid around the contacts causing them to arc and make a connection. This tells the sensor that the boot is open which in turn set's off the alarm.

I took the locking mechanism off and dried it out with a hair dryer before replacing it which worked a treat but when i dried it out i realised that the contacts inside the locking mechanism were very flimsy and corroded to hell (to the stage where they are ready for falling apart) unfortunately they are part of the locking mechanism and so i may end up having to change the whole thing in the future but hoping i won't have any more problems since getting Audi to sort the seals on the rear washer.

Short term, if you haven't the time to strip the locking mechanism etc, just take the boot lining off and unplug the plastic connector from the locking mechanism, this will stop the alarm from going off but note, Your boot is no longer alarmed if you do this.

As long as you get the seals sorted however you should be ok and even if the connector is completely corroded you could just disconnect it as long as you don't mind the fact that your boot lid will no longer be alarmed.

As i said Bud, i hope you have solved it but if not try the above.

Kyle

 

[gavin89]

Hi Gaz,

I hope you have indeed got it sorted and the charged battery has sorted it however, (just a hunch)
Blast a few pints of screenwash through your rear screen washer and see if it does it again.

I had exactly the same problem with mine before Xmas (05 Plate A3 2.0 TDI), My alarm kept sounding randomly when i locked the car, sometimes within 10 minutes and sometimes after a couple of hours. I couldn't work out the problem straight away so i left the car unlocked in the garage for a day as i didn't have the time to see to it there and then and it seemed to sort itself out. a week or so later i had the same problem (put it in the garage again which again solved it) This problem came back a few times until i realised it only happened when i had used the rear washer.

The problem was water from the rear screen washer which (when the seal goes) leaks down the inner lining and ends up in the boot lock mechanism. There is a small connector in there which controls the alarm and boot sensor etc which due to the way it's designed catches alot of the excess washer fluid around the contacts causing them to arc and make a connection. This tells the sensor that the boot is open which in turn set's off the alarm.

I took the locking mechanism off and dried it out with a hair dryer before replacing it which worked a treat but when i dried it out i realised that the contacts inside the locking mechanism were very flimsy and corroded to hell (to the stage where they are ready for falling apart) unfortunately they are part of the locking mechanism and so i may end up having to change the whole thing in the future but hoping i won't have any more problems since getting Audi to sort the seals on the rear washer.

Short term, if you haven't the time to strip the locking mechanism etc, just take the boot lining off and unplug the plastic connector from the locking mechanism, this will stop the alarm from going off but note, Your boot is no longer alarmed if you do this.

As long as you get the seals sorted however you should be ok and even if the connector is completely corroded you could just disconnect it as long as you don't mind the fact that your boot lid will no longer be alarmed.

As i said Bud, i hope you have solved it but if not try the above.

Kyle

Hes got a 8L...

 

[JamJay]

Hi Gaz, I hope this might help you.

I have a 1M Leon on the same chassis as your S3 and I believe we might share the same fault...well at least until I fixed it.

My car used to do this regularly and every time I would run outside (naked if necessary ) to chase away the theives or vandals however, when I got there no-one was around and the car was locked. I put it down to either people being scared away before I got there or our local, noisy wildlife (I live on a nature reserve in the country) but after many many times I was suspicious. I ran a VCDS scan on the car and a fault was registered, although I can't remember exactly what it said the gist of it was that there was an intermittent fault with the O/S/R door lock. Basically the lock wouldn't fully close and the alarm system would detect it occasionally through the night so I can only assume it was trying to lock and unlock the door all night. I didn't strip it down as it coincided with a spate of cold and wet weather we had last year after I moved it out of the garage for a period, so I started off easy and washed the mech out with a load of WD40 with the intention of using something more sustantial once that vanished but the fault never came back and going on for 1yr now, I've had no more issues.