Today I became the proud owner of a remarkably nice '89 Audi 500 Turbo. I believe the 500 is a South Africa specific model name, and may have been called the 200.
Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) there isn’t an owner’s manual with the car. The dashboard has a variety of different lights/indicators, and most of them are pretty intuitive. However there’s one that has me stumped.
In the upper-center of the dash console, there is a square with an LED display. When I start the car, this display initially displays “OK”, which I assume is the car telling me there aren’t any problems - sort of the opposite of the “Check Engine” light. However once I start driving the display changes to a circle, which looks somewhat like this:
(O)
except the parentheses on either side are actually 3 separate segments.
Anyone have any idea what this is supposed to indicate? I’ve tried looking online but haven’t come up with anything.
Also, on the turn signal, there is a little button on the end which says “Fix” and a switch on the front face of the turn signal that says “AUFN, EIN, AUS”. I can’t work out what pushing the “Fix” button is supposed to do. Re: the “AUFN, EIN, AUS” switch, the switch will slide and lock in either the EIN and AUS positions, but only temporarily slides over to the “AUFN” position. I suspect that these are German abbreviations, but I don’t know what for. Although it just occurs to me that they may be cruise control settings, based on the way they work, and the fix button might be the button for locking in the speed…
The switches on your turn signal sound like the cruise control switches on my Chevy van. The slider switch is OFF/ON/RESUME(?) and the “Fix” button on the end is to set the cruise control speed.
The dashboard light may be an Overdrive indicator. Is there a button on the transmission lever that turns the indicator on/off? Assuming you have automatic transmission.
I know next to nothing about Audi’s, but a lot of import cars have a system somewhat like that. I would guess that since the “OK” changes to the (O), it is probably an indicator that something is either empty, such as washer fluid or a light is burned out.
Dunno - it changes to a red state if it’s warning against something (like my parking brake being on) but this is the “normal” amber color. Doesn’t seem to be a warning, really.
But I could be wrong. It’s anything but intuitive, in my opinion.
That’s usually the symbol for the brake pad wear indicator. It’s probably telling you that your brake pads are due for replacement - when it turns red, it’ll mean they’ve worn to an unsafe condition.
On the other hand, if your brake pads are in good condition, it might be indicating that your ABS is armed. Find a safe part of the road, brake suddenly so that the ABS activates, and see if the symbol does anything.
I’d second that. Several of my cars and others I have driven (mainly French) have that as a brake indicator, either handbrake still engaged, fluid level low or worn pads. Haven’t seen it on the current ride, fortunately.
This sounds pretty plausible. It does look quite a bit like the ABS indicator, actually, apart from the segmented sides, but there is a separate ABS indicator so I’m thinking I’ll have the brake pads checked and see what that turns up.