Well here is another long overdue update. Things have been extremely busy with my three month's working out to Southeast Asia and the deluge of work awaiting me back in Tyngsborough upon my return. I will try to post some quick updates as much as possible now that I have some time.
Welcome to a Nightmare:
When I was first contacted about taking on this repair of an 2009 Audi Q5 by a client, I immediately refused. This 2009 Audi Q5 had been an unfortunate victim of Hurricane Sandy in New York and had incurred "minor" flood damage and been totaled. First thing's first, there is no such thing as "minor" flood damage in any modern car. The electronics incorporated within every vehicle these days are very convenient when working properly, but become a nightmare when exposed to water.
After listening to this client's story however, we decided to try and see if we could at least get the vehicle running again. Because of the risk and complexity of the job, we were emphatic that we may not fix the Audi at all but would try our best and work our way through it. Our client agreed and we arranged to have the Audi towed from a local dealership (they could not get the car running after changing numerous parts and taking a few weeks to look over it) to our shop. The car arrived late in the evening, so we placed it in the corner and decided to take a look the next day...
The next morning we began disassembling the Audi interior. The truck had no electrical current going through it whatsoever and a clear water line around the entire interior of about 2 feet high. It also became quite clear this car sat in water for awhile, as all its battery cables had rotted off. If you know Audi batteries, that isn't a simple thing to figure out, as they have a combination of about 5 wires and leads going to their batteries on both the positive and negative terminals. Someone had tried jerry rigging up some homemade wires with no success...
look at those battery terminal wiring!
front seats removed and marked- heavy suckers (60+ lbs)
all interior trim removed and marked
After removing the interior trim we kept finding more issues everywhere such as; corroded seat terminals, fuse panels, relays, solenoids, etc. It was a mess and one of those situations where you ask yourself where do I even begin...
corroded relays in front seat harness
rear fuse panel completely corroded
rear seat fold down cable rotted and stuck in position
After seeing the damage, we quickly called the owner to discuss where to go next and what they wanted out of the vehicle. Our first step would to just get the battery connected properly and see if we could get anything to work electronically. With some help from our friends at Audi of Nashua, we got schematics and went to work rewiring the battery cables. Soon we had some good news, with interior dome lights coming on and voltages starting to read through in a couple of spots.
We had 14 volts at the battery but only 1 volt getting to the starter motor lead (which had already been replaced by another Audi dealer as they diagnosed that as the problem). We got out our voltmeter and soon found out we were losing voltages throughout the car. So we had a short or numerous ones in the wiring. Starting with the lowest connectors, we began to clean out every relay and electrical connection with electrical cleaner and a dental pick. Every step of the way we found more poor connections or rotted wires and repaired accordingly. This went on for a week or so as we slowly chased our way up to the dash.
Battery cables repairs and attached properly
After going over all connections again, we decided to try and start the car and see what we would get. Amazingly, we had power and all dash lights came on immediately when the key was inserted! While we were very happy to see that, we still had no motor action to see if the car would even run.
soon we had dash lights
We began checking voltage readouts in all the wires in leading to the starter motor and throughout the ignition system. We had a full 14 volts going to everything leading up to the aftermarket remote car starter installed when the vehicle was new. So we decided to cut out the entire remote start and install a new Audi ignition module to get back to basics. After recoding everything, we examined the engine to see if there were any signs of water in the cylinders. After removing some plugs and checking oil, we could find no signs of any water so we inserted the key and waited in great anticipation. Voila! The engine fired right up and sat at a decent idle. We were finally getting somewhere. Now that the car ran, we decided to move it into the shop and check out some of the underpinnings on the Q5.
draining fuel to remove any water that may have been in tank
our temporary drivers seat...
All of the underpinnings looked to be in good shape overall. We cleaned up the undercarriage and then called the owner to see where they wanted to go from here. She was pleased with the work so far and asked if we could clean up the interior and install some new seats. We agreed and began the cleanup process of cleaning all interior carpet and components reinstalling. While this was tedious, it came out quite well except for the front seat rails which were stuck in place since the motors had seized and we could not access the bolts to loosen them...
front seat area cleaning up well...
rear seat getting all buttoned up...
Since we couldn't get access to the seat rail fastening bolts, we had to drill through the hardened steel railings just to reach to bolt heads.
drilling through the seat rails...
Unfortunately, we could not drill through the inner rail as it was at an odd angle, so we have to use a grinder to grind through the rear rails...
grinding in the Q5 interior to remove old seat rails...
modifying the seat rails to fit new seats...
After a few hours we were finally able to remove the seat rails and began modifying the rails to fit the replacement seats we had purchased. Soon we had everything back together and went to test drive the Q5. The truck ran well, showed no signs of suspension damage, and had decent pull. The only issue was the stability control and brake warning lamps on the dash.
warning lamps all over...
The owner decided to just take the car as was and see how it drove before deciding to dive into diagnostic repairs which was understandable. Coming from what we started with, we were pretty happy with the outcome. The owner was very lucky to not have any major engine damage from the flooding and get back into a usable state. But the problem with any floor car, especially modern ones, is that the water will continue to play games with all the electronics. Water is electronics largest nightmare, and the things it causes are unknown and always at a risk to return. While we were glad to help out the owner in trying to salvage what she had on her hands, we would definitely not recommend buying any car with floor damage. The time and money spent to try and repair it can cost more than the car itself.
