Headlights stay on when car is off and locked

[Kate]

Hello all .... i need some help please. I have an A4 convert 2.4 2003

My alarm spent most of the afternoon going off so i returned to a very flat battery. Someone helped jump it, once the car was running the passenger side headlight stayed on .... and ... the esp warning light was on too ..... i drove around for a bit to recharge my batt, parked up outside my house and everything seemed back to normal .....
or so i thought .... as i locked the car and started to walk away the passenger side headlight came back on and then the drivers side came on too ! so now, my car has been parked outside my house for a few hours with both my headlights beaming .... any ideas ??

1 more thing. 1 of the rear light bulbs has gone too, i got the normal dashboard warning, do I have an electrical fault thats playing havoc with my lights ya think ?

thanks, Kate

[Badger61]

It sounds like the jump start has blown the central electrics control unit but you need to get it checked out at a centre.

[nihil]

I'm at a loss as to how a simple jump (*done properly*) could have blown the ECU, unless it were jumped from a 24V source found in some military and industrial vehicles. I could also see it happening if it were hooked up backwards, but taking damage like that would(should?) have rendered the vehicle entirely useless.

Perhaps the battery was only "mostly" dead, and the ECU (or relevant module) was only getting enough power to only partially finish any register operations (I've run across similar when programming AVR/BS/PIC microcontrollers)? Voltage drop has a strange effect on little computers.

I'd disconnect the battery completely for 10 minutes or so, and see if that resets the electronics.



Badger: A-Team quote FTW