Limp mode warning appeared

[Simon50s]

About 10 seconds before I turned into my own parking space I got a dash warning that I was limited to 3000rpm. At the same time came the fault warning beep and briefly a message saying drive system failure.

It's the first time I've had such an error and the car is just under 2 years old.

The car had been parked up for several days with sub -10c temperatures but there were no problems starting and driving this morning. I washed the car and parked it in a heated area for a few hours before returning home. It was only that last 10 seconds of my short journey that it appeared.

I switched the car ignition on and off a few times with no signs of any errors. I'm thinking this was perhaps a random 'one-off' and all is fine.

I was planning to take it for a short drive again shortly to see if it's now clear.

In the meantime, if anyone has experienced anything similar, please let me know and what the outcome was.

 

[Darren92]

Could be a million and one things. Best solution right now is to get it onto a diagnostic which will give the technician some inkling on where to look.

There is no point in telling you one specific thing as the fault table on your ecu contains hundreds of possibilities.

 

[Simon50s]

Update

I took the car for a drive locally and there were no further problems.

As it seems fine now I'm more inclined to wait and monitor things before trying any diagnostics.

I'm assuming if there was a real problem the fault message would remain on.

 

[JKP]

There are two possibilities, one beign what you mentioned, the another being this was the first sign of a forthcoming issue. If you've still got several months of warranty I'd just leave it be unless it renews, but if you're running out of warranty soon I'd get the car checked since it gave the drive system fault, so you can be sure if it's nothing to worry about, or something that must be fixed under warranty.

My first 8Y did the same on some very frosty days, the dealer said it was because of too sensitive sensor values that were a common problem in the early cars, so that may be nothing more than something like that related to the parking during the cold days. My second car did something similar once, but it also gave lots of other fault warnings at the same time. I got the car checked and the dealer found fault codes referring to the temporary drop in fuel pressure. Without even asking me to observe if it does it again they went on to change the fuel pump under warranty.

 

[Simon50s]

Interesting. That got me thinking as I've only about 3 months left on the warranty so I'm now thinking I should get it checked out just in case. Even though no further problems so far.

 

[JKP]

That's still plenty of time so I'd rather wait few weeks to see if it happens again and then decide whether to check it or leave it be. You can also make a call to the dealer and ask what they recommend. If there's a fault that needs fixing then it's Audi who pays the bill, not the local dealer itself (that's what I've been told), so you should get quite an honest opinion.


A liner note for the UK readers, I have no idea if the part of Audi paying the warranty bills applies to you.

 

[Simon50s]

I 'jumped the gun' a bit as I read your last message while at my local Audi dealer .

They agreed to run a diagnostic tomorrow.

Hopefully nothing but gives me piece of mind.

 

[JKP]

Ok, that's fine. I live quite close to a local dealer, so if something comes up, I'm also pretty quick to pay a visit.

Fingers crossed it's just some nervous sensor reading from the cold that means nothing.

 

[Simon50s]

My dealer is on my route to work so easy for me to drop in.

I collected my car this afternoon and they had identified two fault codes from the previous error message I had, which translates from Finnish as:

1. P001400 camshaft late adjustment, exhaust. Reference value not reached.
2. P012F00 coolant temperature/oil temperature.

They said there was lots of under-voltage fault codes.

Action taken was Engine controller update, battery charged and Engine oil TAR+TÄYD (whatever that means - do you know JKP?).

So all fault codes were clear and fortunately I didn't have to pay anything because it was still under warranty. This feels like a good outcome and hopefully no further problems.

 

[JKP]

I think I saw some of those fault codes with my older cars when I read them using OBD11, they may not mean much but I think are easily related to some more extreme cold start. But the controller update sounds good anyways. Also driving short trips in cold consumes the battery, which may cause under-voltage faults.

TAR+TÄYD comes from "tarkistettu + täydennetty" which in this case mean "checked and refilled".

Sounds like exactly how I thought the process should go under the warranty for us.

 

[Simon50s]

I think I saw some of those fault codes with my older cars when I read them using OBD11, they may not mean much but I think are easily related to some more extreme cold start. But the controller update sounds good anyways. Also driving short trips in cold consumes the battery, which may cause under-voltage faults.

TAR+TÄYD comes from "tarkistettu + täydennetty" which in this case mean "checked and refilled".

Sounds like exactly how I thought the process should go under the warranty for us.

Thanks for the translation on those abbreviations.

Yes, I was thinking the same as it's been especially cold and I'm doing mostly shortish distances just now. I didn't drive it much over the Christmas/new year holiday either.

By the way, what does the controller update do?

 

[JKP]

By the way, what does the controller update do?

To my knowledge, it tweaks some software values that define how the engine (or some other component) runs. I have no idea if they have like different parallel mappings that they swap if some certain faults occur, or if they constantly finess the code but only update the older cars if they run into problems... Maybe someone more "inside" than me can give a more specific answer.

 

[Simon50s]

I saw this while at the Audi dealership. I wouldn't say green would be my first choice but with a car like this you can get away with it - very striking

 

[JKP]

Very cool indeed! Looks like an individual color, can't even remember when I last saw one here.

Our dealership had a new RS GT Performance on display when I last visited there. The color was the dark greyish green from the "basic selection" but it was very cool and menacing lookin. Unlike the price tag, it only was menacing...

 

[Saral]

I saw this while at the Audi dealership. I wouldn't say green would be my first choice but with a car like this you can get away with it - very striking

Oh love this, god i miss my viper green Scirocco