Now have my new A4 S -line stronic

[veltror]

Due to purely financial pressure I traded my C7 A6 3.0 TDI Quattro stronic for an exdemo A4 Sline.
Compared to my A6 it is a major step down, its is more nimble to drive but after fours of quattro suddenly I have this wheelspin thing that I had forgot about. It was a well specced demonstrator with tech pack, Alcantara, HUD, 19 inch alloys, Virtual cockpit MMI Nav plus, rear camera, flat bottomed steering wheel,

First the good points

Virtual cockpit is great, although a bit more reconfigurability would be welcome
Audi connect and the infotainment is good but Audi connect was proving a major problem to get working.
Lots of space in the back and boot almost as much as my A6
Good performance and much better steering compared to my A6
Nice quality interior with nice touch sensitive switches
Very economical
Nice to drive nimble and does not wallow

Now the bad

19 inch wheels make for a very hard jiggly ride
Auto stop is utter rubbish compared to the A6, it stops the engine while the car is still moving, this is unacceptable
Very poor PDI by the dealer
Cannot make myself a key user on the myaudi website it continually is telling me it cannot send a mtan since my landline is too busy, when i am asking for it by email ***?
Hill hold assist should be standard, it is in a VW
Who thought moving the Park button to the gearlever was good idea? Some work experience engineer?
The whole Audi connect interface needs a redesign and the manual is woeful, reminds me of a series 39 VME manual in places
Strange placement of washer fluid reservoir
there is little point having technology if it is convoluted to use and resiter why not genertae a Q code for the car and use that
It is in Ibis White

Comments appreciated

[Kestrel]

The `Stop/Start` is of concern to me.
You say it stops the engine while the car is still moving...
What happens when the car actually stops on the foot-brake...does the engine start up again?
Whilst stationary, is it possible to take your foot off the brake and keep the engine from starting up again?

[veltror]

yes the engine stops before the car has come to a complete standstill, my A6 never did this. It starts up again as soon as you take your foot off the brake. The stop/start system on my A6 was flawless, this one does not appear to be so good.

[Kestrel]

Are you saying then that you cannot remain stationary at traffic lights or level crossing and keep the engine off without keeping your foot on the bake...blinding the chap behind you at night?

[Kestrel]

That should be `BRAKE` of course.
Are you saying then that you cannot remain stationary at traffic lights or level crossing and keep the engine off without keeping your foot on the bake...blinding the chap behind you at night?

[ILikeJam]

yes the engine stops before the car has come to a complete standstill, my A6 never did this. It starts up again as soon as you take your foot off the brake. The stop/start system on my A6 was flawless, this one does not appear to be so good.


Pick up my car on Tuesday so don't have first-hand experience, but I'm pretty sure I read that this was a feature of the new stop/start system? Cutting the engine out while under a certain speed and still on the brakes - like it's predicting you're going to stop.

Most of your negatives seem to be about the general Audi experience rather than necessarily about the car itself.

[veltror]

Took the car on a much longer drive today, so a bit more to add. Firstly the steering, this is much much better then the A6, admittedly the A6 steering was fine until a software "update", but the A4 gives much more feel to the road. The Sat nav is much better then I expected, really good and the virtual cockpit does make a good co-pilot. Did not think the HUD would be that good but I am converted, very nice very useful. Not so sure about the "Drive assist" telling me to take my foot off the gas since i am perhaps going faster then what it thinks is optimal, must see if there is a way to turn that off. Very economical, over a mixed fast motorway and A/B road trip it averaged 49 mpg, pretty fantastic.

It was very quiet on the motorway until one corner of the undertray decided to rip itself off and half disintegrate with a clatter, seem pretty flimsy, will be interesting to see what the ******* will say tomorrow.

One point you might want to check when you pick your car up is to chekc if these three open campaigns are applicable to your car and if they have been done

90J5 - software update for display, some displays are displaying stripes

96D5 - Loose cable loom
+ Software update

96D7 - airbag light – intermittently comes on

[veltror]

The Dealer was very responsive when I ranted about the under tray, being replaced next week when I suggested I was not happy about the open campaigns not being done I was told tha theyhad in fact been done but the system had not been updated. HMM

[veltror]

Dealer managed to sort most of the issues out had to order a new key fob scratch off code £40 which they ate, a lesson learned perhaps, so finally got Audi connect working in all its glory. Just annoyed it is still reporting range etc in km, cannot see where to make this in miles.

[Colste]

veltror, If you haven't already sorted it, from memory, I think in top level menu - Car-settings-Units

[veltror]

Should have been clearer it is my iphone mmi app which reports in km and litres.... that is what i need to change

[Vizen2]

I've been running my Sport 150 Stronic Avant for 3 months now, clocking up 7,500 miles:

Good points:
Fantastic drive, composed and smooth, an advantage of the standard wheels maybe?
Fuel consumption 55mpg on a long run.
Comfortable & quiet.
Telephone search voice command works well.
Interior space.
Power tailgate, pity it doesn't unlock the car when you open it, I live in fear of locking the keys in the boot!

Bad points:
Infotainment system SOOOO sluggish to initialise, it's a pain having to wait for the nav to load before you can load an address, not intuitive, most function requests are long winded and not easy to see when driving, this is the worst feature of the car. We have a Sportage in the household and its infotainment system is touch screen and is so simple to use, the A4's just isn't.
Door bins, very difficult to use, rear section far too narrow.
Centre consol storage limited and what ever you leave in is visible unless you drop the arm rest, I'd like to plug in my iPod and leave it in the glovebox.
No USB connections in the glovebox, only in centre consol, see note above.
Carplay, clunky, low res and overrides the Audi phone system disables the 8 shortcut buttons if you phone numbers stored, can you turn it off?

Don't get me wrong this car replaced a BMW 320 ED auto, who's fuel consumption was a bit better, but couldn't complete on interior space, ride and composure, very glad I made the change but a couple of tweaks really would make the car untouchable.