Kitcarr

My 2011 battery died when I had left the dome light on one night and we jumped it and then after that it seemed to have needed jumped a couple more times.
After that the whole radio speakers and everything just stopped working. We checked the entire wires throughout the car and they were fine.
So we bought a new battery from interstate battery. And within 2 weeks battery kept going dead and they replaced it with no charge.
Now there are a couple of lights on the dashboard that are going off and the main thing is the electronic shocks were disabled. So it is very low to the ground right now.
Every time we drive it the car has to be jumped again because the battery will die within one day. So we just stop driving it and it's just been sitting.
Has anyone experienced this before? Or know what type of service I need to ask for? Three auto shops now have come up with the excuses about why they don't want to do the job or even look at the car.

-Wes-

Well, first off, you really need a VAGCOM unit (Ross-Tech VDCS) to communicate with the car. New batteries must be "coded" to the car in order for it to charge properly. If your last battery was at end-of-life, the car was treating it differently than it would a new battery, and it will continue to treat the new battery the same way until you code it. Also, the unit will be able to read all system codes (dash light or no) to give you a better idea of what is going on in there.

You likely have parasitic drains, like the door handles, in addition to any issues you can actually see (like the air suspension not operating), and low voltage situations on these cars will cause all sorts of weird things to happen.

Unplugging the battery monitoring system (small two-pin connector on the negative battery terminal block) will help with at least getting the vehicle to charge the new battery like a normal car would, but the VDCS is cheap for what it allows you to do, so don't look at that as an alternative to empowering your ability to figure out what is actually wrong.

'10Q7TDI_Prestige'

If your air suspension has 'pancaked', that's an indicator you have a leak or failed component(s) within that system...not unusual on older air suspensions; possibly the compressor relay failed open, compressor failed, etc., which could lead to the system's main fuse blowing and rendering air suspension completely unresponsive. Air susp Maxi-fuse; that's the large, orange Maxi-fuse located next to the battery box under the seat. You don't want to drive it on collapsed air suspension, regardless.

As Wes said, you really need to fully scan for trouble codes with a VAGCOM capable scan tool to get a sense of what's going on, and you are better off getting a VAGCOM that can actually do some work and save you some serious $$$ on maintaining and repairs, like the Rosstech VCDS unit.