Hey guys, just bought my a4 about 2 weeks ago and ive noticed a couple little things. I will say that in general i love the car and am pumped to own it, but it would be nice to fix these small issues.

For starters its an 02 1.8t quattro.

Interior lighting is an issue: All of the interior lights (meaning dome light, floor lights, trunk light) seem to pulsate when doors are open. Theres no real pattern to it, they just pulsate and flicker.

Brake light issue: The dash is telling me i have a centre brake light that is out, but it isnt. From looking at the wiring on the trunk lid it seems to be on the same circuit as the lighting for the trunk, so im guessing its related to issue #1.

Alarm issue: close door, lock it up, alarm goes off a few seconds or a few minutes later. This is fixed by flipping the two switches on the door to turn off the motion and tilt sensors. Not sure if this is related, and its really a non-issue since i can just turn those off each time i get out of the car and the problem goes away.

So im looking for any advice on these issues, after searching and finding some problems sort of related but not quite. The lighting issue is universal throughout the car, so I'm not thinking its door latch sensor.

My first thought it so check the grounds, so if anyone knows where the grounds are all located that would be a huge help.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-Alan

 

Open both front doors, locate the connector with the puple lock on it, this is the main connector going to the doors. Disconnect them and clean it with electrical contact cleaner or something like it, but not brake cleaner, way too strong. After its clean, coat the connector with stabilant 22 from audi, or a standard electrical stabilant from autozone or something. Once thats all done, erase all the fault codes and see if you have any more problems. It should fix the alarm problem and flikering lights. As for the brake light problem im not sure, i would double check the owners manual and make sure its actually a brake "light" problem and not just low brake fluid.

 

Nice. Thanks for the advice, finally have a day off work to take a look at it. When you say open the doors do you mean pop them apart or is it a connector that should be visible from just opening the door?

EDIT: Just kidding, found it the first time i pulled back a piece of rubber. Will update later on effectiveness of the fix.

 

Update:
So i did the above cleaning and relubing. Notably, it looked as though someone had done so already (previous owner i suppose). I did it all again anyway, and put it all back together. All problems persist.

I did notice while i had my head in the footwell that the lights that flash have a clicking sound coming from under the drivers side carpet (LHD)that syncs up with them. After looking around here im thinking that it may be the CCM. Gonna pop that out and have a look, see if its shot.

EDIT: Well, i was hoping to find a bad connection in a wire somewhere near the CCM but didnt. Seems its the actual module. Guess I'll find out for sure when I've got a couple hundred bucks laying around for the part.