Traction control/ABS/E-Brake lights on/flashing

[Shibby]

I just bought a used '04 Audi A4 Quattro (Wagon) with 130k miles. Since I've had had an issue with my traction control, and ABS light coming on, and so does the e-brake light.. except that one will flash. The thing that is weird is that it only happens after I turn on my headlights. If I try to drive when all of those lights are on, it goes into a limp mode and drives like crap. Turning off the headlights and turning them back on doesn't fix the problem. To fix it, all I have to do is turn it off, and cycle the key 1 or 2 times, and then it's fine the warning lights go off. It does this a couple times a week.. it doesn't matter if it's cold or hot. It just happens at random. I've tried searching, but I can't find anything that matches this exact problem. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[westie180]

Is a HID kit in the car? If so, throw it in the garbage and get a kit that isn't awful, or else halogens. You're experiencing issues with electromagnetic radiation.

[Dubsport Inc]

Does the car have an HID conversion on it? Sometimes the ballasts on aftermarket HID's can interfere with various modules causing concerns... the ABS computer being very sensitive to interference from them!

[EURO_DOLL]

Yeah it's definitely caused from a HID kit. I dealt with this for months when I installed my first set of HID headlight ballasts. Initially, I bought a set of cheap ballasts for my headlights, and they were blowing out every other week. Within a month and a half, I had replaced 9 ballasts.

It doesn't actually affect anything in regards to the lights showing up (your car is totally fine if that's what the cause is). I recently swapped out my cheaper HID ballasts for canbus ones, and the problem has gone away. It has something to do with improper shielding on the actual ballasts, and it interferes when the ballasts are mounted too close to those modules.

Get a better set of ballasts if you want to keep the HID's. Or try mounting them in a different spot.

[ZiggyBeatz]

This is happening to my 03 a6 but mine has factory xenon.