Audi Repair: Problem with Audi A6 alarm, flood car, dash repairs

Question
Hi Jan...Just want to let you know I really appreciate you taking the time to read this...Hopefully you can help?

Sometime during the winter we had a huge downpour of rain....very unusual for us in the UK :-)...I had not used my car for a couple of days and to my horror the battery well filled up with water due to the drainage plugs being blocked by leaves! The water had found its way into my car and flooded the passenger side, front and back it looked like it had come through the vents situated under the passenger seat but not sure. A couple of days later whilst driving around the indicators went mad, hazards kept switching on and off, indicators intermittently switching themselves on and off, flipping from left to right...nearly caused a few accidents and had a few hand signals aimed at me so left it to dry out a bit more and had the hazards switch changed, luckily this resolved the indicator problem but the interior lights don't work at all and the key fob wont do anything so I cant switch the alarm on and I have to use the key to lock and unlock the door this is a real pain as you have to lock and unlock the doors on the inside, passengers keep forgetting to lock the door as they leave and I keep forgetting to remind them....I am lucky I still have my car!!!

Do you have any ideas of how I can try and sort out my alarm and get my interior lights working again before I take it to Audi and get charged a fortune??!!

Once again Thank you for your time and I look forward to any help and suggestions

Kindest Regards
Donna-Marie

Answer
Hi, in the US your car would be considered a 'flood car' and the insurance companies these days just write off the vehicle, since there are so many electrical systems just there under the dash.  Repairs get very expensive.  You need to find someone who is good (and cheap) with import cars, to help change a number of electrical components.  The dash may have to come out for easier access.  I would locate an identical vehicle in a salvage yard, and buy all of the affected electrical relays/switches in one go and replace as many as you can in your car.  The central locking module is located under the front seats, in the US it is the passenger, in the UK it may be the driver, and this more than likely also suffered since it is low in the car.  What I would do is remove the dash, find where the water came in, replace all electrical relays etc. in the path or near the path of water flow, try to remember how high the water got in the passenger compartment and replace all electrical components that are below that level.  That is the only way to really fix this problem.  Oh and you are right, if you take this to the dealer, you will be able to pay for a new car before this one is fixed properly by a delaership.  The trouble is that even if they fix individual components, others may have started corroding and will fail sometime in the future, which means you will keep having to go back for repairs.  Not good news I'm afraid, but if you follow my suggestion you should be able to get the problems resolved.  It is a big job though.  Good luck,  Jan