chrisa

Hi all,
I scan this forum and others once in a while, thought I would share a recent undertaking and fix that I did a couple of weeks ago.

Starting around Sept 2017, my drivers door started acting up. I would close the drivers door and the instrument cluster would indicate that the door is still open and the interior light would stay on. I would open and close the door a few times and it would eventually go away. Fast forward to December. It happens much more often and opening and closing the door are no longer effective. Eventually I lose all power to the drivers door i.e. none of the switches are illuminated, the gas latch release mechanism no longer works (there is a manual release in the trunk), power door locks don't work etc.

I couple of weeks ago, the temp on a Saturday afternoon hovered around 0 and peeled back the wiring harness between the drivers door and the engine body. The photo is attached. From the photo you can see two split wires, one brown and the other green/red. You can sorta see the other end of the brown one at the bottom right corner it's a but hidden. I could not find the other end of the green/red wire, I pulled back the harness as far as I could but I could not find the other end of that wire.

Day 2, solder the darn thing together and see what happens. Bought a soldering gun from Cdn Tire. There were a bunch but I bought one that had a 20/40 watt mode. I soldered the two brown wires together by adding another new piece of wire between them. It was very tight working in there, I put a piece of aluminum foil between the wires the brown wires I soldered together and the other so as to not spill hot solder on them. I have not soldered for a long time but what I found was that the 40 watt mode was not enough to heat the wires to do a proper solder job, while I did get the job done, something with a bit more wattage would have been better for the size of wire I was dealing with. Put electrical tape around the brown wires where I made the joint, and I also put black tape around the smaller orange/red gauge wires that are starting to fray, and also put electrical tape around the green/red wire since I could not find the other end of it (more on that one later).

Put it all together and poof, I now have power to my door. Cost me $50 and some time but it worked, and some self satisfaction also. The brown wire for sure is supplying power to the door.

So about the stranded red/green wire. I could not fix it the same day when I first identified the problem, so I quickly put the harness back and the green/red one made contact with the door body (I found this out after the fact I pulled back the rubber harness cover on day 2). With the green/red wire one contacting the car body, the door ajar (open) would not stop on the car. It was pretty annoying, that is why day 2 soldering job happened, as I was just so fed up with it. I noticed this wire was contacting the door and causing the door ajar condition to occur (alarm sound, door open on cluster etc etc). As I said before, I could not find the other end this green/red candy wire, so at least putting electrical tape around the end of it would prevent future contact with the door frame.

Anyway one solder fix to the brown wire restored power to my door. It's tight but it is possible to do it as a DIY project but you have to be careful as the space is tight and the wires are quite taught. I did not do a great soldering job but it still worked, it's been about 2 weeks now and it is still holding. I have no clue what the green/red wire does, but it would seem logical that there is some other end to that wire. I am not sure what a dealer or mechanic would have done, i.e. would they have replaced the whole harness or just soldered it together. Whatever it is done now..

As a last note, prior to this door power issue, the drivers window stopped working, I thought it was the master switch in the drivers door, so I replaced the switch by taking off the door panel and putting in a new switch. My drivers window still does not work after brown wire fix, but it does not make any sense to me that the open red/green wire would have anything to do with this.

Cheers all.

ffloslam

hello from the big apple USA

just want to contribute to this thread that help me out alot.
I ran into the same problems ... first driver door lock stop working, i can live with that. Next driver side windows stop working, i can live with that too.
What happen after that was the same as the guy above, no power to driver side door.. no lights on anything of the buttons... no gas or trunk power buttons working.
So did a little research n came across this thread. Pulled part the sleeve from the car body to the driver side door with the same result.
Connect the brown wire.... and powered up.
The reason i'm writing this tread is to say thank you to chrisa from ottawa for the post that help me out alot and also to let everyone else know that the RED/GREEN wire is for the POWER WINDOWS!!
Like Chrisa, my brown and red/green wire was both split. But unlike Chrisa my other end of the red/green was still there and wasnt sucked back into the door panel and I was able to connect it. So i first connect brown wire and the lights and power came on. Next I connected the red/green wire hoping something was gonna happen weather it might be the door locks of the windows and it happen to be the windows that worked.
Just thought I put in my 2 cent and it'll help out someone with another A3
I have a 2007 A3 s-line

garterburn

FIXED DRIVERS SIDE BUT NO POWER ON PASSENGER SIDE DOORS NOW!

OK, great info here. I found that 7 of my cables were broken. I cut all of the wires off, then soldered and heat shrinked each wire back carefully and it fixed my electrical problems on the left side of the car. However, now I have no power to the right side doors, cannot control them at the drivers door or at the doors. What could this be?

When I first removed the boot on the drivers door, some wires sparked... seemed like it was the big brown and the big red/green wires. Could this have damaged something on the right side wiring? I checked all fuses and none appear blown.

Please advise! Thanks!

bhyrman

Good stuff guys. Thanks for sharing !!

chrisa

Hey garterburn, nice job with the shrink-wrap and soldering. I would have guessed the fuses but if you checked that already i don’t know. maybe a bad solder joint or a harness issue on the other side? I’m glad this helped out a couple of y’all, I’ve since sold my A3.

garterburn

OK, I went to Audi dealer and they ran some tests and they say I need a new passenger front door control module. Apparently when I removed the boot on the drivers door to inspect the broken wires, the wires sparked and shorted out the passenger front door control module. So, I ordered a used passenger front door window motor/control module assembly and will change it out when it comes in.. hopefully it fixes it. I will post back the results.