# Haldex fault fixed



## bhoy78 (Oct 30, 2014)

Hi I have been having an intermittent fault code with my haldex unit as follows:

1 Fault Found:
02248 - Valve for Controlling Clutch Operating Angle (N373) 
014 - Defective
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 11001000
Fault Priority: 2
Fault Frequency: 57
Reset counter: 48
Mileage: 3618101 km
Time Indication: 4

I had managed to clear the fault code in the past but it had returned. To be honest I really don't have a clue about this kind of stuff, ReTTro had kindly given me some advice about checking the measuring blocks etc which I did do but as I say I really am clueless about these kind of things so I didn't know how to follow up on it. I know that ReTTro would have gave me further advice if I had asked but I never done so as I really find tinkering with these things goes straight over my head. In all honesty I wish ReTTro would move to this side of the border as I could do with a vcds guru closeby :lol:

The symptoms I was experiencing weren't that severe in my opinion, if I was flooring my car the engine management light would flash on for a second about 4-5k revs. I assumed that was due to the tyres the previous owner had put on the car which aren't the best brand. I didn't have continual wheel spin or a engine management light on at all times as I have read others have experienced. Personally for me I don't really ever drive that fast, we are all different most here map their car's and do performance enhancements but for me what I like about the TT is it's looks and I like to keep it looking nice & shiny. I honestly wasn't sure that my car had a problem with the haldex unit.

A couple of weeks ago I took the car to audi for a service. When they called me to say the car was ready they advised me that their system which is now Otis rather than vas had picked up a haldex fault. It was the same error code as given above. Their quote to replace the part was £1072. I asked to speak to the master tech, I told him I had a vcds cable and had seen the fault code previously, the guy spoke to me for ages and told me that he hadn't noticed any fault on his test drive that he had felt the car was driving fine (although the car had done 1 mile more when I collected it than when I dropped it off so it wasn't much of a test drive) and that he had only noticed the fault when resetting my service indicator.

I told him about a place I had seen that refurbished haldex unit's. The tech indirectly told me to give the refurbishment a go and explained how it all worked, I get the feeling that he was seeing more and more haldex unit's with the same problem.

Anyway I tried to find someone local to me who could repair it, the only haldex repairer I could find in Scotland told me he dealt mainly with land rovers and had never fixed an audi one. He also told me it was a 6 hour job taking a land rover haldex off and was dubious when I said the audi one was only held on by a couple of bolts. Needless to say I decided not to take my car to them.

I had seen a place advertised in Cheshire called auto fault finder http://www.autofaultfinder.com On speaking to Matthew the owner he told me either I needed my pcb repaired or more likely that it was my haldex pump. My options were either to send my haldex unit down for testing which costs £117.50 including return post or £37.50 returned if it was unrepairable. He also offered a drive in service which is £110 if the pcb needs repaired and £50 for his labour removing and refitting the haldex. If it was the pump he quoted £300 for a new pump and a haldex oil/filter change which seemed really good as I am sure I have seen people say they have paid £600/700 for the same job hence why I am writing this long winded post 

I decided to just drive down, that way if it was the pump it could be replaced there and then, I left this morning at 4.45am got there at half 8. Left Matthew to do his thing, my pump was fine it was the pcb board which had corrosion. So cleaned it up no damage to the actually board other than corrosion which is caused by water ingress, as the units aren't very well sealed, the board was re varnished dried and resealed left to dry and then refitted.

All I can say is what a difference, the car feels rapid, obviously I had more of a problem that I thought. I get no flicker of traction control light at all, I am guessing I had been driving around with just 2 wheel drive. The grip is fantastic, after fixing it he left me to test drive it, try launch control and then rescanned it with vag com no error codes whatsoever and having done a 270 mile return journey I couldn't get the smile off my face.

The downside of the day was having to take the girlfriend to Cheshire oaks, cost me almost as much as audi wanted to fix my haldex unit :lol:

Anyway just posting this up in case anyone has haldex issues in the future, auto fault finder are really worth a shot if like me your incapable of fixing these things yourself. They also do haldex oil change and filter for £78 which seems good value.

Forgive any spelling mistakes in my long post, it was a 505 mile round trip, just in the door now and had 1 hour sleep last night. Noticed you guys are more courteous drivers down there, the weather was good and less average speed camera's than we have up here :lol: only downside was a bad accident on the M56 hopefully the drivers were all ok as there was a major police/ambulance and fire engine presence.

I am not really expecting any responses to my post I just posted it as I hope it helps someone in the future, felt great driving by my audi dealership on the way home sticking the fingers up to them as the repair cost £160


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## davectr (Sep 9, 2012)

Glad to see you got your problem resolved (at a much more reasonable cost!) and are now enjoying the car again. Also this is good info for anyone who may have similar issues


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## aquazi (Dec 24, 2014)

Thats for the effort in posting this.

If i ever encounter an issue with my haldex will keep this in mind (and also not take the wife  )

Sent from my iPhone 6s using Tapatalk


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

That's a very useful post as it ties a fault code to the fault and what was done to repair it.

The Haldex pump/motor failure usually brings up an "Intermittent supply" fault.
There's some info here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=786977&p=4974529&hilit=haldex+pump#p4974529

Some time ago Peter-SS undertook a DIY repair to his Haldex control unit for exactly the problem you describe: failure of the unit seal and water damage to the circuit board within. 
See: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=575530&p=4001593&hilit=haldex#p4001593


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## Craig_09 (Jul 20, 2015)

Nice to see a detailed update, very helpful!! Glad it wasn't too expensive for you


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## Rene Pogel (Aug 27, 2015)

Glad you were able to fix it. Not bad, considering the car's done about 2.2 million miles 

RP


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## bhoy78 (Oct 30, 2014)

Thanks all for the replies.

If my haldex had not been repairable then I was going to buy a second hand unit from Craig TTS so if anyone is looking for one in the future give him a shout to see if he still has it.

Thanks for the links Brittan, I had seen Peter-SS post previously and found the information to be great, I wasn't sure what car he had or what generation of haldex was on his car but he did a great job. I might be wrong but I thought some TT's, particulary earlier models had a generation 2 haldex.

I also found this link on briskoda where the guy had a similar problem and repaired the fault in the same way:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/33 ... x-problem/

I had asked a mechanic I knew if he would remove the haldex unit for me and leave it on the ramps while I took it to an electronics repair place. He said he would if necessary but wasn't that keen as he didn't know anything about the haldex system. I found that with quite a few mechanics as soon as haldex is mentioned they just say go to audi. I was going to take it off myself but I was worried about loosing the haldex oil, which was unnecessary as Matthew showed me how easy they were to remove and if you prise it off gently you don't loose any of the oil.

On your first link about the fault with the pump, I can confirm I was told the same as brice1ie that audi generally do not supply the pump separately hence the excessive cost but the same part numbers are used on other vag group cars. I was shown where the fault typically is on the haldex pump and was advised that on the generation 4 haldex units that is where most problems arise. The auto electricians exact words are audi are cheap [email protected] and it is due to the design that they get clogged up and it is a part audi don't class as ever requiring servicing, that the other fault with the corrosion was due to being badly sealed and where they were placed under the car. The guy estimated he had repaired 300 gen 4's in the last year and they were almost all pump related. That he expects to see a lot more TT's in the future as haldex faults generally start to happen on cars around 5 years old at 50/60k miles. That was bang on the money as my own car is a TTS just over 5 years old and had just turned 60k.

I knew that my car didn't have the error code for the pump but I also didn't have the correct voltage or whatever running through it and I think that is why Matthew expected my issue was more likely to be pump related despite my error code. That said I can only assume he cleaned/sealed the other parts as well, it had been my intention to stay at the garage and take pictures of the process to post up here but when the gf decided to come that idea was put to bed. It was a nice surprise to return to the garage to be told the pump was fine and it had only required the cheaper fix.

My fault occurs more often on the gen 2 haldex units apparently. I was asked if I stay near the sea (which I don't) my car was owned first by a guy in rural wales, so I assume driving through puddles on back roads can cause the same problem. So if buying a car from someone in a rural location make sure you check that you feel the car is driving on all 4 wheels.

I have never left someone a review before but I was really impressed with the service, I liked the fact the guy was really helpful and done his best to explain to someone who isn't mechanically minded. Even if it had been the worst case scenario and my ecu was unfixable the guy said not to worry he had lists of the part numbers that were interchangeable from other vag cars and that he likely had a suitable gen 4 board in stock. He also had gen 2 and 4 boards and parts to fix any of the problems his test rig showed up. I can only give my experience of the service so please don't blame me if someone is unhappy with any repairs in the future. Happy for anyone to pm me at a later date to make sure everything is still ok but I fully expect it will be and I was advised with the repair I should expect it to last the same amount of time as a new part, how long that is given the auto electricians dislike of the cheapness of audi's haldex system/design I don't know :lol:

Last thing I can say is today I went to fuel up, been pouring all morning and no matter what I do I can't get my wheels to spin even with my mid range tyres. The grip around corners, roundabouts is amazing and the feeling addictive, my garage queen will end up getting mapped at this rate :lol:


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## leopard (May 1, 2015)

Excellent write up bhoy, just goes to show without the determination you could have been rinsed by Audi and how invaluable these specialist independents can be.
Well worth the effort...good man


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