4WD System not working

Give Westle a shout, I bet he'll know Lemon. I've been told my transfer box is faulty, hence, no 4 wheel drive. Has anyone actually got this repaired by a garage?

If it's around the £1000, I'd seriously get it done
 
Lemon S3 said:
Not to worry about the filter and drain plug as I found this:
haldexservicing.jpg


But still need to know where the earth strap is.
Click to expand...

Why would you only put .25 litres back in if it holds .42 litres ?? do you not fully drain it or something ??? suerly you put back the same ammont as what comes out ???
 
That video isn't very good guys. The only part you can see clearly is the draining of the oil. The filter is difficult to get to unless you have the tool then its very easy. Also I noticed this guy is pumping the new oil back into the hole he drained it from!!! I found another screw plug near the top of the haldex for filling it up so you dont end up loosing oil everywhere when you squirt up the hole (ooooerrr).

You only need 0.25 litres to lubricate the haldex unit, the same as you dont fill your engine oil up to the brim too, it doesn't need that much.
 
Westle said:
Also I noticed this guy is pumping the new oil back into the hole he drained it from!!! I found another screw plug near the top of the haldex for filling it up so you dont end up loosing oil everywhere when you squirt up the hole (ooooerrr).
Click to expand...

Is that on the right hand side as you look at it from under the car.
 
I've been told my transfer box was causing the problem. Ordered a new one, fingers crossed it does the job and there's nothing else to it. Anyone found out where the earth strap is located yet ie photo etc?
 
s3-Ryu said:
I've been told my transfer box was causing the problem. Ordered a new one, fingers crossed it does the job and there's nothing else to it. Anyone found out where the earth strap is located yet ie photo etc?
Click to expand...

I cant see it being the bevel box (transfer box), if you managed to get the car to move at all then it would make some pretty nasty noises. I think you may be mistaken for the haldex setup?
 
Kunit said:
I cant see it being the bevel box (transfer box), if you managed to get the car to move at all then it would make some pretty nasty noises. I think you may be mistaken for the haldex setup?
Click to expand...

uh-oh
 
Kunit can you elaborate a little further please mate? The bloke who sorted my clutch out said it was definitely the transfer box
 
Westle said:
I cant remember off the top of my head. I'm doing a haldex oil & filter change on my mates S3 this saturday so I'll take pics and get them up on here.
Click to expand...

I did the haldex change today but forgot my camera to take the pic! I'm sorry. Anyway it is very easy to see so I will try to describe its location as best I can.

If you lay under the car with your legs hanging out the back and look up at the haldex unit you will see the drain hole directly in the middle of the unit. The hole to fill the thing up in on the right hand side of the unit as you look up and the plug will be twice as large as the drain plug and will look rusty. It takes a 5mm alan key and is easy to get to.

Unfortunately in our case today the fill plug had been rounded off inside so an alan key wouldn't fit so we had to squirt the oil up the hole and made a ****** mess everywhere!
 
sorry to hear some of you guys having some issues with the haldex, not to rub it in but i know mine is working, done some rather good drifting in the snow a few weeks back :)

anyway i gotta get my camera out tomorrow to take some pics of various things, il get one of the earth strap for you guys and il try and highlight the drain/fill plugs that westle has described
 
jonny87 said:
sorry to hear some of you guys having some issues with the haldex, not to rub it in but i know mine is working, done some rather good drifting in the snow a few weeks back :)

anyway i gotta get my camera out tomorrow to take some pics of various things, il get one of the earth strap for you guys and il try and highlight the drain/fill plugs that westle has described
Click to expand...

Oh yeah i forgot to get one of the earth strap too. I'm not a lot of good am I!
 
This thread says that the hole I am talking about above is a "check hole" to make sure you dont over fill the haldex!

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3051530&page=2

I find it very hard to believe that the haldex unit was designed to be filled and emptied by the same hole! It's not the easiest way to fill it up via the drain hole and its a bit messy too!

My car is at Audi for an MOT today so when I go and pick up the car I'll try and speak to one of their mechanics and find out exactly how they do the haldex service.
 
well i got under the car yesterday and took a couple of snaps of the haldex:
DSC00170.jpg

DSC00171.jpg


i couldnt see anything that looked like an earth strap though apart from this, but i really dont think its what you are looking for:
DSC00172.jpg
 
Good man. I'm not too sure what the earth strap looks like myself I just know mine was replaced on my last service. The 2nd pic shows the "check hole" which i've used before to fill my haldex up. I shall see what the audi mechanics say later.
 
i had a really good look around the rear diff area / wishbones and couldnt see anything at all that looked like an earth strap

i only spotted these just as i was about to give up, theres one on the inside on both rear hubs and the wiring runs along the rear arms and up into the bodywork

im guessing the haldex has three plugs on the side one for a min fill level one for a max fill level and the top one for actually filling up?
 
jonny87 said:
i had a really good look around the rear diff area / wishbones and couldnt see anything at all that looked like an earth strap

i only spotted these just as i was about to give up, theres one on the inside on both rear hubs and the wiring runs along the rear arms and up into the bodywork
Click to expand...

I know what these are now mate! They are the rear wheel speed sensors, i've changed two over in my time. I'll have to investigate the earth strap next time i'm under mine.
 
oooooo ok furry ****, like i said i didnt think it was what we was looking for but its all i could find

hope you have better luck :)
 
Just got back from Audi Hatfield and the mechanics there put the oil back in via the drainage hole so that's probably the way to go about it then. They use a piece of hose on the end of the tube so that they can manouver the gun about a bit if needed.
 
what a truly peculiar setup?!

so what are the three plugs on the side of the unit for?

dont suppose you asked where the earth strap is did you, i dont need to know where it is but its really bugging me as i couldnt find it lol
 
I had to ask the service guy to ask the audi mech so I couldn't ask him properly.

I might call Dean from 4rings and ask him what the other plugs are for and how he does the oil change. He's an ex audi mech.
 
Dean at 4rings doesn't have a clue what i'm talking about but said he will check next time he's under a haldex unit. He also fills via the drain hole!

I dont think we'll ever find out what the other plugs are for!!!
 
Guys, I think i've spotted the "earthing strap" on the rear diff! It's not actually a strap but a little metal plate! It's the only thing on my rear diff that looks brand new. Here are the photos with the part number on:

attachment.php


attachment.php
 
I ran my fingers round it and it touches something else next to the diff. There's nothing else on my diff that looks new and the mechanic said that the earth strap was corroaded. I'm going to speak to the audi parts department tomorrow anyway so I'll ask what that part number is.
 
Hmmm interesting, going to crawl under my car tomorrow n have a look. Why don't they call it earth block rather than strap.

Ok cool, update when your know what's what. :thumbsup:
 
i too saw that little metal box thing whatever it is, but decided that wouldnt be it?

the earth strap wouldnt be above the diff would it, i know it would be a dumbass place to put it but seeing as we cant find it in any obvious/visible areas, its only leaving the hidden/dumbass places to put it lol
 
Cheers Westle, good to get the earth strap sorted once n for all.

Took my car to the garage this morning to get the haldex controller checked for faults n it came up with a rear diff clutch fault so going to either find someone that can change the clutch somehow or get a complete rear end.
Found this on ebay, not a bad price n not too far from me but will it fit my car? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....akeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en
 
Thanks for all your write ups. I'm trying to figure out the 4wd problem with my Skoda Octavia 4wd '03 and I've made a checklist with all of your posts ;)

A good add to this thread would be to REPLACE the fuse... It can be bad even if it seem like it isn't.
 
Last edited:
lee111s said:
Update folks. I've got the car back but still no Quattro. The mechanic is stuck :( He believes it to be an electrical fault, he said the pump is not getting any current from the wire that powers it. He doesn't think it's the pump itself. Anyone know where I can get hold of a wiring loom diagram for the S3?
Click to expand...

How'd you go with this problem? I'm getting my Haldex pre-charge pump replaced next week as it seems to be the most common point of failure when the symptom is - no fault codes. In your case, no power to the pre-charge pump I would have thought would throw a fault code.
 
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