2016 SIM issues - Dealer embarrassed and out of ideas

[AlphaPapaGolf]

Hi folks,
First time on the forum and first time with an Audi. Always had Beemers and VW T5s previously. Traded my 2012 X5 for a glorious 2016 Q7, Dayton grey pearl, 3L TDI Sline with all the trimmings including the virtual dash. Utterly love the car more and more as i'm getting used to it. I've always been very active on previous forums with build threads etc so depending on what happens with the car I may be more active in the comping months. Tempted by the boot speaker upgrade as the standard speakers, as everyone says, is no where near as good as the standard on my wife Q3 or in fact the courtesy A6 i had. Anyway, the issue which hopefully someone can help with.

So, after a few days of messing about setting everything up i got a sim card to put into the MMI. Having an iPhone the hassle and wait tethering was annoying on my daily commute as I wanted to get away from using Waze on my phone and utilise all the lovely screens i now had and use the online traffic built in. So i've been in telecoms most of my career and i'm a fairly switched on guy tech wise. No matter what I did i just couldn't get the sim car to even read. I tried a few different sims to try and rule out networks etc but still nothing.

Basic symptoms. Insert sim, all connections go, phone disconnects and i get a check sim message. Ive trawled the internet and found people saying make sure the data module is on etc and that there is a faulty sim module etc. Anyway, everything works perfect until i try and insert any sim. Phone disconnects and i get stuck in a loop of "activate data connections', 'non data devices available' and 'check sim'. After a week on the phone and sending pictures to Audi connect they said visit your dealer. I've had the car a week now so I go in and the master tech comes and has a look and confirms, you should simply insert a sim and will connect. Mine does nothing so they take the car for the day.

End of the day and they say they have all the diagnostics and its with Audi to advise. Couple of weeks go by and dealer comes come back saying Audi have authorised them to get it sorted. they need the car for a week as they need to take the unit in the glove box out the car, send it to a specialist to have whatever it is fixed and returned, then reinstalled and tested. So ten days go by and they call saying all done and tested. Great I think! Bear in mind every day I'm stuck in this loop of trying to tether my iPhone for a few minutes so i'm desperate to just have a sim in the car all the time.

Anyway, I go in and they say the external said the pins on the sim reader had been bent, and it was probably caused by my multi sim. First off, i was like that's one hell of a force to have bent sim reader pins. Either way, the reader has been replaced and checked all at no cost obviously. The master tech sadly isn't about so i head home thinking I need to get a new, less destructive sim. Next day I try and i get exactly the same thing. Bear in mind i've bought two cars from the dealer within a week they are starting to get VERY embraced the amount of times i've been in there since purchase. Don't even get me started on how many times they have lubricated a faulty window on my wife Q3 only to have it fail again a few days later. Thats in the with them today for the third time, and she too has only had the car a little under two months.

Anyway, I call and say look, I'd like some time with the master tech to show me what he did and to learn any special trick he's done to test the sim card. No problem sir, come in this afternoon. They again confirm its been tested and verified.

So.....and you all know where this is going right!!!! I was hoping after ten days with a specialist and being checked and confirmed it was simply "user error" and he would show me a trick! No!!! He got exactly the same thing as me. Pushed the sim he used to verify and nothing, wait a few moments and "check sim" He takes the car into the service department to reset etc. After an hour and a half of coffees and waiting he comes out very embarrassed saying he's not stumped very often but he doesn't know why its not working. he confirms he verified it the day before but just doesn't know why its still failing.

At this point im starting to loose the will. On one hand it seems petty but on the other its not a cheap car and it should be working. Using my logical brain i say, well its sat for a week doing nothing and then you test without anything else connected. So could the phone connection be causing some conflict or something as that was the only thing i could think of that was different than when they tested. MMI unit factory reset, lets to sit and tested. Still nothing.

So, again embarrassed they send me home hoping at some point it'll wake up and work. Going home with the sim in the MMI would not pair my phone. I would get all the way tot the end and then every time it would fail to connect. Click the sim out and bingo, it connects first and every time. Next day, again with the sim in hoping it will wake up, the phone simply won't auto connect at all. Again the solution is to unblock the sim in the glove box and boom, the phone automatically connects.

So, i'm waiting for them to come back with another plan. To be it sounds like the issue they fixed wasn't actually the real issue. I've suggested taking the glovebox unit out another car and testing that to rule out the whole unit as I don't want them taking the car for another ten days.

Anyone have any ideas, previous experiences or thoughts?

Sorry, just realised this is now a massive thread! Very cathartic though!

Cheers
Adie

[Nemo78]

@andyhud007 any ideas?

Can’t help you myself as it’s just very strange behaviour what you’re describing - never had the issue at all and I use a data sim and iPhone.

[AndyN01]

Hi Adie,

I'm afraid the only thing I can bring to mind is the word "pathetic"

What, precisely, have they been doing to need your car for 10 days? And it still doesn't work

And they can't sort out a faulty window?

Hope it gets sorted quickly.

Quite frequently these days I think stuff is getting too clever for its own good.

But then again I'm a sad old man.

Good Luck.

Andy.

[AlphaPapaGolf]

Hi Andy,
So it took them a day to remove the module, then a day to post it, then the specialist company worked on it for a few days, and then posted it back, hence it took ten days.

Window wise, i think they just look at the sheet and go "its sticking, ok i will lub it up" which works for ten minutes. Hand the car back and boom, the trim or whatever is catching grips the window again and the whole benny hill music starts again.

Just had an email back from them. They are talking to Audi Technical again. I don't know why they don't just replace the module. I'd heard on another forum that there was faulty sim modules that folks simply had replaced but this seems to be completely new to them.

I agree with you. They aren't software engineers and the MMI isn't the most robust and stable thing in the first place. Hopefully someone has an idea while I wait another two weeks for Audi technical to come back.

Regards
Adie

Hi Adie,

I'm afraid the only thing I can bring to mind is the word "pathetic"

What, precisely, have they been doing to need your car for 10 days? And it still doesn't work

And they can't sort out a faulty window?

Hope it gets sorted quickly.

Quite frequently these days I think stuff is getting too clever for its own good.

But then again I'm a sad old man.

Good Luck.

Andy.

[Alan02]

Cant help with the SIM issue, but your wifes Q3 window.... I would bet on the window seal possibly being an issue with the window sticking. If the mechanism has been lubed that many times.....it aint the problem. Good luck with your car.

[AndyN01]

Hi Aide,

Thanks.

Surely it would be really easy to take your SIM, try it in another car that's known to be OK then, assuming the SIM is OK, simply change whatever is duff for a new one?

Forget all this send it away to a specialist stuff. Just put a new one in for you. If they want to send it away for themselves that's fine but you're the inconvenienced one with something that (still) doesn't work

Or is that too obvious, simple and easy?

Andy.

[AlphaPapaGolf]

So, the master tech gave me the sim he used to test it only the day before. So we know it’s not the sim! I got an email saying they don’t have any cars with the same module to test on either.

[andyhud007]

So, the master tech gave me the sim he used to test it only the day before. So we know it’s not the sim! I got an email saying they don’t have any cars with the same module to test on either.

Happy to test your sim in my car if you want to post it? Only tpi I found was about bent sim pins which you have already mentioned.

What software version is your mmi on?

[AlphaPapaGolf]

Thanks for the offer but I know there’s nothing wrong with any of the sims. Including the sim that’s been used to test. There’s clearly some bug/conflict with the unit or something more fundamental.

[AlphaPapaGolf]

Does anyone know if there will be anything amazing on the Audi app if this gets sorted? Everything online is either vague, generic or only refers to the new esim models.

I’ve seen lots say the remote access stuff isn’t enabled in the UK. I think I’ve got the aux heating feature so being able to use that would be good.

I feel like I’m going to simply have to tether my phone and life with it at this rate. I will have had the car two months tomorrow.

Proper first world issues right!