12/10/2026
This one nearly caught us out 😬
2012 Audi A3, broke down after a 20-mile drive. The dash lit up but it wouldn't crank. Bypassing the starter got it running, so everything pointed at the starter circuit.
But every time we cranked it, the ignition feed dropped out. The voltage was disappearing inside the steering column module, across a little fuse on its circuit board, so it looked like a new module was the answer.
Except that fuse was resettable. The thermal camera showed it heating up, which meant too much current was flowing, not a faulty module. We followed that current with an amps clamp and found the crank signal wire to the engine ECU had chafed through on a bracket and was shorting out.
A tiny split in one wire. A new module would never have fixed it.
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