My A6 is currently in the garage with the ignition off and the secondary air pump keeps going on for about 5-10 seconds and shuts off and repeats this whole scenario every minute or so. I took it to the dealer and they said they couldn't get it in for diagnostic until monday. I guess it will stop when the battery goes dead. If it's something like a relay, please advise and help me locate the relay also, I am handy with autos, but I don't have a manual.
Thx in advance

 

Follow up.....yes, the battery finally went dead.....the electrical sircuit is simple. fuse-relay-solenoid. Now, find those parts and you are in shape. The system apparently is stand-alone electrically with the relay probably keeping the circuit hot. The fuse is always hot. I called the nearest dealer yesterday who is known for ripping people off and they were not helpful. Theywouldn't even tell me what to do in the interim. I called a second today who is more reputable. The second dealer told me where the fuse is and to pull it until I could resolve the root problem.The fuse isunder the panel under the hood above the firewall on thedrivwer's side. I can almost bet the first dealer will tell me the pump is bad, replace the relay and charge me a grand.

 

I would start with replacing the relay.

 

Im having the same problem, but I have an A4 from the same year (1998 right? Thats what I assume from your username anyway) so I cant imagine the engine bays would be too incredibly different, could you post pix of where the fuse/relay stuff and all that is? I just found where my pump is and unplugged the power from it and next time I have some time to myself, I'm planning on tracing the power line, hoses connected to the pump, and if you can give me a general idea of the overall circuitry for the relay and solenoid and all that via pix of your engine bay with circles around the area I should be looking at, then I'll take a look at those too and see if I cant find out if my problem is somewhere in that mess of stuff. All I know is my local dealership wants to charge me 55 bucks to get a computer reading for the CEL codes of whats wrong and then charge me another 75 or so dollars an hour to trace the problem and then whatever else for parts and labor to fix it so I want to see if I can dig through the circuitry myself and try to track down the problem. The guy I bought mine from claimed he had just put a new SAP in a few days before I bought it so either he's FOS or the pump he installed was a POS. Thanks in advance for those pix if you decide to post them for me to try and figure out where to start looking for stuff.

 

When I find where mine is, what would you guess the cost would be to replace it? Is it something I can pick up at autozone, or would I have to order it offline or through the dealer or something? Also, would it be a simple job to replace it? Or is there something complex that someone with minimal experience working on cars wouldnt know how to do?