****, sorry to hear that. I hope you are able to get it back on track, so you can forget this incident ASAP

 

What type of trickle charger did you use and for how long?

 

See the procedure described in the manual:

Checking
and
Filling

volt
battery
is
drained.
The
electrical
system
will
be
deactivated
temporarily.
The
charged
high-voltage
battery
supplies
the
12
volt
vehicle
battery.
If
the
high-voltage
battery
drains
while
the
vehicle
is
parked
for
a
long
peri-
od
of
time,
the
supply
to
the
12
volt
battery
will
be
interrupted
and
the
12 volt
battery
will
drain
as
well.
Note
the
warning
messages
about
this.
To
charge
the
12
volt
battery,
read
and follow:
—
Charging
the
battery
page
242

 

Please keep us in the loop as I am going to be in the same situation hopefully as soon as this weekend if my car makes it to the dealer early this week.

 

Sorry to hear that man

Were you able to get the frunk open to charge the 12v?

 

Man good luck!

 

Update: no update. Car hasn't moved from the spot I left it. The dealer had to order some dollies so they could move the car into the shop and hook it up to their diagnostic equipment. The service advisor told me that they need to drain the big battery before working on the car for safety reasons. I hadn't heard that before. I'm also wondering how they do it.

 

Man really thinking about keeping my RS7 another year and order a 2023.

 

That might not be a bad idea. While these auto forums greatly overemphasize problems, it is kind of hard to ignore the teething pains of all the e-trons. If you check out taycan forum, you'll never want to buy one of these things.

 

Especially because the RS7 is running perfect, still looks amazing.

I will still have another vehicle but this will be my work car and I park in a very tricky underground garage.

We have a first year Q7 that was in the shop quite a bit.

Lastly I could order the 2023 in Nardo.

 

Update: yesterday (after 4 days), they got the car running and it is now in the shop undergoing diagnostics. They could not get the frunk opened regardless of what they tried, and ended up having to crawl through the back seat into the trunk and accessing the 12v battery directly. I suspect I will know more on Monday. Maybe someday I will be able to drive my new car lol.

 

Apparently the car is fine--only a very low battery level when it arrived. I should be able to pick it up tomorrow if I can work it into my schedule.

I talked to the dealer about "transport mode" on these cars. He said they have to take new cars out of transport mode on arrival as part of their dealer prep of the car. One of the features of TM is that the car can only go about 20 mph, so guys at the port can't drive them around lol. If you are shipping a GT (or perhaps any e-tron) I would definitely consider having it put into TM for the trip. The only downside is that you will have to have a dealer return it to regular mode, unless we have some really good Internet sleuths who can figure it out and share the details here

The other option for shipping would be to hit the hood release from inside the car before shipping. The hood would still be latched with the secondary safety latch that you open using your hand at the front of the car. This way you could access the hood if necessary even if the battery is dead.

 

Glad to hear, e-dude!

I'm still a little confused though -- you mentioned you bought a trickle charger but that it did not bring it back to life.

How did you get the frunk open with a dead 12v??

 

I didn't get the frunk open, nor could the dealer. They crawled into the trunk and accessed the battery directly to get the car to respond again. I don't think the trickle charger produced enough power to get the frunk open. Nor did some higher powered options that the dealer tried via the fuse panel.

 

I didn't get the frunk open, nor could the dealer. They crawled into the trunk and accessed the battery directly to get the car to respond again.

Isn't the battery in the front though, or is that just the access terminals for charging it?

 

FWIW, my car made the trek from Austin, TX to Kentucky over the weekend and we had no issues. They locked the car in the trailer on Saturday and about 30 hours later, we had no issues getting back into the car. Also, the transport was a 1 car enclosed trailer towed by a pickup truck and the car keys were in the truck during transport.

 

For those of you worried about the 12V battery, this is my fail safe.
Waterproof charging cable attached to the 12V battery and easily accessible if needed.

Not visible with the frunk closed unless you look down into the space under the wiper.

 

For those of you worried about the 12V battery, this is my fail safe.
Waterproof charging cable attached to the 12V battery and easily accessible if needed.
Not visible with the frunk closed unless you look down into the space under the wiper

you aren’t concerned about creating a water/moisture channel along the wire?

 

No. There isn't a water tight junction between the plastic panels below the wipers anyway. There are wells that collect and divert water in different areas and also gaskets around the center main frunk storage area. Much like what is under a regular hood, the components are shielded by the hood but still exposed to the elements.

 

The battery is definitely in the front as shown in my pics. They must have accessed an electrical line connected to the battery in the rear trunk area. But the story the dealer told is weird.

 

Funny I was just looking at some schematics for the car. They show the battery in the front and a fuse box for the high-voltage to low-voltage charging circuit in the rear. I think this is how the big battery charges the little battery. I bet this fuse box gave them a direct connection to the 12v battery, and they charged it from there.

The dealer story doesn't sound exactly right, but it came from the service advisor who may not have heard things correctly from the service tech.

 

if there was a way to charge the 12v from the trunk that’d be very helpful!

 

Ah, yes. Thats why I got a waterproof cable with rubber locking cover over the end that is designed to be left attached to a battery outside. I think they use them for golf carts and motorcycles.

 

Yup. This is exactly what my two motorcycles have. The cable dangles under the seat … so its constantly getting wet during any riding I do in the rain (which is surprisingly a lot).

 

The cable came with the waterproof charger I got that meets the power specs for charging the lithium battery.

Amazon.com: Victron Energy Blue Smart IP65 12-Volt 15 amp Battery Charger with NEMA 1-15 Plug (Bluetooth) : Automotive

Buy Victron Energy Blue Smart IP65 12-Volt 15 amp Battery Charger with NEMA 1-15 Plug (Bluetooth): Battery Chargers - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

smile.amazon.com

 

I'm happy to report that the car is now alive and well and sitting in my garage. I've only driven it about 30 miles so far, but wow do I love this thing. The Kemora gray is an awesome color, and the gray interior matches it perfectly. I've had a bunch of Audis, so I generally know how everything works, but this car is really different than an ICE Audi. I'm not quite comfortable with turning it on and off yet. I love the accelerator response, which is sedate and controlled, until you punch it. I slammed my head against the headrest the first time I tried that lol. I'm still working on getting things set up, but man this is a very cool ride.

 

Very cool to hear this!!!

 

I hooked up directly to the two leads on the battery rather than using the ground point. When charging the battery with jumper cables they tell you to connect the positive clamp to the positive terminal and the negative lead to the ground point. The traditional rationale for that is to avoid a spark on the battery terminal that could ignite hydrogen gas from a conventional lead battery. But lithium batteries don't release hydrogen gas. So I don't know why the manual issues the same precautions. Since my charging cables are already connected to the battery, I plan to connect the charger to the cables before plugging the charger into the wall. I don't think this will create a spark at the battery surface. Since the ground point and negative lead of battery are connected anyway, I don't see any other rationale. But I advise you to follow the manual and use the ground point as they instruct. Also, be careful to not fully disconnect the batter terminal leads when you attach the charging cables or you might reset the car electronics.

 

Thanks good point on disconnect and losing settings.

 

No. My car never died.

 

FWIW, the service rep told me that there were many instances of my car's alarm going off, so that appears to be why the car stayed "awake" and drained the battery. Something to keep in mind for anyone who needs to transport their GT.

 

I think this was discussed earlier in the thread. There is a transport mode that the car should be put in. Sometime folks do not do this.

 

How many have we had dead not after transport? Similar to TEL I have to park in a difficult garage at work. Would be a nightmare.

 

None that I know of. Every one discussed on these boards was after transport. My local dealer says putting the car into transport mode is a PITA and requires essentially the diagnostic computer AND has to then be taken out of this mode on arrival. So dealers may simply not be doing it.

Other forum posters have suggested going into the MMI and telling the car to stop monitoring internal or something like that.