Possible car break in and now car (2012 S4) is dead

[skullcandy]

Hi All

Im hoping somebody may be able to provide some insight into the following: over Christmas we found our car open (drivers door left ajar) one morning. The car is parked on a street (reasonably respectable resi area) and the car keys are left in the kitchen each night. Some scrotes had been through it looking for notes/change. All of the door pockets/glovebox had been rifled through but nothing actually taken. A tennis racket in the boot was left untouched and a coat nicked but then dumped further down the road. This is apparently local problem where we live with a couple of drug addicts well known to police spending their nights checking door handles on cars. I assumed we had not locked the car (it doesn't auto lock after x minutes).

This morning the same thing happened again: car found unlocked with drivers door left ajar. However the car is now completely dead (the radio and interior lights will come on but the central locking is down and instrument cluster is dead and the car wont start). Connecting jump leads makes no difference. The battery is showing 12.8 volts on a voltmeter thingey. There is no obvious sign of damage to the car.

It seems like this latest break in and it now being dead cant be a coincidence, but I have no idea whats happened and now we may be looking at getting the car recovered to an Audi garage etc

Can anyone help? Thank you

Edited by skullcandy on Monday 17th January 19:10

[somouk]

Check side indicators and front/rear lights for signs of tampering. They may have blown a fuse of some form is they are shorting the central locking.

Other than that do you have RAC etc might be worth giving them a call to see if they can start it, cheaper than having it recovered.

[Drive Blind]

fuse box would be my starting point - all present and correct ??

[liner33]

Check for water around ecu , is it a convertible?

[Jakey123]

liner33 said:

Check for water around ecu , is it a convertible?

They never sold an S4 convertible 🙂

[skullcandy]

Thanks for the thoughts all. A friend who is a Audi Master Tech came out last night and ran diagnostics, checked all the fuses etc but could not see what has gone wrong. We took the battery out of the car in case the scrotes were disturbed trying to steal it and then manually locked all doors. Now Im just waiting on the RAC to recover it to Audi.

Assuming this is all related to the break in, is it worth buying a Faraday Cage/pouch? The car is a 2012 so while its locked and unlocked via the fob, you still need to put the key in the console. Thanks

[liner33]

You only need a Faraday pouch if you have keyless entry

[Dr G]

Jakey123 said:

They never sold an S4 convertible ??

If that's the case then I've just got out of an imaginary car...

[Jakey123]

Dr G said:

Jakey123 said:

They never sold an S4 convertible ??

If that's the case then I've just got out of an imaginary car...

Haha, my mistake!

Sorry, I should correct myself here to say;
They never sold an S4 convertible in 2012!

[skullcandy]

By way of an update, the Convenience Control Module was fried. Audi thinks this may have been caused by the attempted theft when the thieves plugged their own dongle in having cloned our keys. Annoyingly we may also need a new ABS unit as Audi cant get rid of error codes but they will be seeing what Munich says tomorrow

[Philvrs]

https://youtu.be/qV1qLMA_ruE

Recently watched this diagnosedan video on a similar fault and how he diagnoses the comfort module being at fault. Worth a watch if you find it interesting.