Hi all,

I've had to book my A3 into the dealership to investigate a curious and dangerous event this week.  Below is a screenshot of the report I filled in when making the booking.  Has anybody else had a similar experience?  I hope the dealer can access what I assume must be hidden messages, else how can it be resolved?

Thanks Ian, 

‘..pulled into the next emergency bay.’ On M1?? 
 

Wowsers. Keep us posted on how you get on. It'll need a diagnostic check first for fault codes. 

Will do.  IF there are fault codes, curious to know why I can't see them (unless I'm not looking in the right place).

O/T - on the subject of looking for stuff, is it just me, or is the new, online manual useless?

Error codes are generally only visible to a code reader plugged into the OBD port. Few of them are translated into warnings within the car.

Since filing the above, there have been two more incidents, niether of them causing me to stop the car, fortunately.  The first one affected engine speed,disabled the auto headlights and warned of a right indicator fault. Stopping cleared them all.  The second  was "just" a right indicator fault warning, also sorted when doing the equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL.

After the first one I established an email contact with VWG Web Enquiries, where I sent the pics of the warning lights, etc.  I wrote again with the latest info.  In both cases VWGE responded, happy for me to continue keeping the record updated in case of further issues.No point taking the car in if there are no alarms showing.

Edited February 5Feb 5 by PRSY

Is the car a mild hybrid or solely wet fuelled?

Mild hybrid (not that I knew when it was being sold to me).

Search these forums for the appalling behaviour of mild hybrids. One topic in particular has seven pages of discussion. You are not alone in having such problems.

Oh dear.  Thanks a lot, Cliff!  Just what I needed.  Better not let 'er indoors see this; she'll never drive the car again.

Meanwhile, I'll have a look, as suggested.

On 2/6/2026 at 7:36 AM, PRSY said:

Oh dear.  Thanks a lot, Cliff!  Just what I needed.  Better not let 'er indoors see this; she'll never drive the car again.

Meanwhile, I'll have a look, as suggested.

Prsy - did you get any further with this? Cliff directed me here as I had a similar issue, my A3 just suddenly ground to a halt coming off the motorway (luckily!) no warning lights or anything, throttle did nothing. Stopped and restarted it and it was fine. It’s in with Audi now to see if there are any fault codes.

I mean, who wants a car that you pay a fortune for that may actively die with zero warning in the fast lane of the motorway!

Third issue with the car in 15 months. Not impressed at all.

Hi David, Still monitoring and reporting what amount to ctrl-alt-del issues with mine. Third one a week ago, each slightly less hairy than the last. I was directed to VW Group Web Enquiries after the first issue and I'm sending updates as the glitches occur, to ensure they have the full picture. Bottom line - not worth the time booking in for inspection if nothing to show for it afterwards. Not happy about the situation but will continue until such time as it stops dead and I have to get Assistance out. Hopefully nothing happens whilst in the overtaking lane on the m'way. This is what I sent after the last episode:

I used the car a number of times yesterday, into the evening. It performed as expected until starting up for the return journey home. At or shortly after start up I saw a dashboard warning about partial disabling of the pre-sense system (limits?).

It was accompanied by alternating warning lamps for Pre-sense (yellow) and Emergency Assist (white). The automatic headlights stopped working.

I stopped the car and switched off the engine briefly. No messages. Same conditions applied after the restart. I continued the journey home and at some point the alarm messages stopped and the automatic headlights function was enabled again.

Nothing left on the car's system to indicate anything had gone wrong.

Thanks. Absolutely insane and scary

1 hour ago, David Bu said:

Prsy - did you get any further with this? Cliff directed me here as I had a similar issue, my A3 just suddenly ground to a halt coming off the motorway (luckily!) no warning lights or anything, throttle did nothing. Stopped and restarted it and it was fine. It’s in with Audi now to see if there are any fault codes.

I mean, who wants a car that you pay a fortune for that may actively die with zero warning in the fast lane of the motorway!

Third issue with the car in 15 months. Not impressed at all.

Hi from the extensive research I have done it would appear most brands have their own problems with various models be it timing chains inlet manifolds and injectors none of which happen suddenly and completely disable the vehicle on a motorway, however Audi seem to excel at making cars that just stop wherever they see fit I would conclude that the slide started with the ULTRA models that are diesel and various petrol models before that, in the case of my car ULTRA they k,new they had problems with the DPF system but would never admit it, they always put it down to driving style or bad fuel, basically the blame was always attributed to the owner not the car, move along a bit and we now have their version of a hybrid wonder what marvellous excuses they can come up with, the lack of embedded codes is because of the software design which I feel was probably done on purpose, when I consider the amount of older cars I have scanned most of the Audis had redundant codes that were maybe five or six years old and irrelevant I think they rush these things through to keep pace with everyone else, the alternative is full electric but if you look at the depreciation levels because of the building mistrust of the brand your average etron is worthless after five years.

Steve.