CoMeader

Does anyone who has the stock Continentals have any issues with what appears to be moderate+ torque steer in your vehicle?

I had some very annoying torque steer symptoms with anything above gentle acceleration at highway speeds. It was doing a significant pull to the left with acceleration even if it wasn't enough to cause a downshift (it was much worse if there was a downshift), and then it would pull to the right when I stopped accelerating. I put the transmission in manual and the symptoms remained, and it was also not impacted by switching into offroad to take the ultra out of the equation. I was hoping it was an alignment or suspension issue - otherwise I did a really bad job with the test drives.

While I was waiting for an appointment to get the suspension/alignment checked (waiting on parts to fix other issues and wanted to do it all in one visit), my snow tires came in (Blizzak LM001) and I had them put on. Now the torque steer symptoms are almost completely gone. This is making me think maybe I had an issue with the original tires that's going to come back in the Spring when I put them back on.

Anyone else having similar symptoms?

BSW

I don't have my allroad (yet i hope) but i've had issues with tires that do weird stuff like that twice in the past, on my B5 S4 and my jeep. Double check the balancing of course, but I had a set of S04's that were supposedly balanced twice and my alignment checked and would still pull on my car and another car. Sold them off cheap (with full disclosure) to a guy who i assume dealt with the warranty aspects since i was in the process of selling the car anyway. Biggest issue is that it's hard to explain/convince someone that they're a real problem and i'd assume even harder after they've been off the road for a while. Prepare for multiple trips to the dealer to get it handled! good luck!

bob m

Phew, glad to hear that the new tires fixed the problem, but besides the possible alignment/suspension issue - could it have been caused by incorrect tire pressures? But the only "problem" with putting on the snows now, is you won't know for sure what the cause was as the problem is now corrected.
This aside, how do you like your Allroad?

CoMeader

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a pressure or balance problem. I bought some Nokian snow tires first, but the shop couldn't get them to balance correctly (despite trying 5 different tires). I had the stock tires put back on while I waited for the Blizzaks - they would have been balanced and the pressure checked when they were put back on. I already talked to the service folks at the dealer to make notes on the car so I have documentation when I have to get Audi to do something about it in May.

I'm liking the Allroad (I just cant do the lower case a) a lot - perhaps even more than I thought I would. I had some minor damage to the car when delivered that's getting fixed, and there's some weirdness in the electronics that will hopefully get addressed by updates.

Favorite parts so far:

• Now that I'm out of the break-in period and driving it harder I'm finding the dynamic performance to be better than I expected even in auto mode. I still tend to use the sport mode on the transmission. We've had a little bit of snow and ice so far and it handled them quiet well.
• The HUD is more useful than expected. I didn't think I would use it much if at all, but I've found that the longer I drive the car the less I use the VC instruments. Would be nice to have RPM in the HUD.
• Rear-view camera and cross-traffic assist. I'm not much for being nannied by technology, but the wide view on the rear camera backed up by the side assist is nice when backing out in crowded parking lots with people who think it's an interstate.
• The seats are quite comfortable and the cockpit layout seem intuitive to me.
• Possibly my favorite cold weather feature (even better than the heated steering wheel) is the ability to use residual heat to keep the interior warm while I pop into the store.
• The SD card slots for music are great. I have a 128GB card installed that can hold all my music. I haven't been able to have all my music with me since my old iPod classic died.

The things that are disappointments for me are:

• Lack of a trailer hitch!! I've taken my LR3 on three trips where I would have preferred the Audi simply because it has a trailer hitch. I think Audi USA removing the hitch option is inexplicable given their market positioning of the car. I'm hoping the Invisihitch folks will develop one for the car, but even then the electronic features designed to work with the hitch will be MIA.
• The adaptive lights seem pretty worthless. On my 2006, adaptive lights meant that the high & low beams turned into the corner and illuminated far down the road. The Allroad's seem more akin to cornering lights from an old Lincoln (nice if you need extra light to turn into a driveway). However, if you ignore the adaptive part, the headlights are great - I like the color and the beam seems to do a pretty good job on the mountain roads I'm driving.
• The all-weather lights seem equally pointless. It seems that all it does is turn on the cornering lights (from about 45 deg from the front to about 90 deg back). If the main beams weren't already pretty wide I'd probably be shopping for a set of fog lights more urgently.
• The transmission doesn't seem to be on the same page with me (sport mode makes it better). It's constantly running the engine to the lowest possible RPM - I would have never run it this slow with a manual (heck even my LR3 with a 4.4L V8 doesn't shift up this aggressively or to this low a RPM).
• Lack of storage. My 06 Avant has under-seat storage compartments in the fist row, usable storage in the rear armrest, and a storage compartment over the full-size spare tire. Not to mention hooks on the underside of the load space cover. I'm still looking for a home for a bunch of the junk I kept in my '06.
• Navigation. The navigation seems to to use a weird routing algorithm that doesn't seem to work as well as google here. The traffic data coverage and currency leaves a lot to be desired compared to either Google or Apple.

bob m

I know no car is perfect, but if you could go back a few months, would you still buy it over the other choices out there?

superswiss

Tires is probably the most likely cause. It's possible you have a bad tire that exhibits undesired pull. One way to check that is to switch the front tires to the other side and see if the pull goes away or starts pulling to the other side. You said you had the tires remounted and balanced. Did they road force balance the tires or just spin balance them? Road force balance can correct symptoms that only turn up when driving the tire on the road and it will also flag a bad tire or out of round wheels. Another option is tramlining. That's the tendency of the tire to follow the contours of the surface you are driving on. Low profile and performance tires have a higher tendency to tramline. Certain brands of tires are also more likely to tramline than others. Wider tires also tramline more than narrower tires.

CoMeader

Yes!! However, the main competition wasn't from other new cars it was from my existing '06 Avant. The Allroad was the only car I liked well enough to consider giving up my Avant, and it was a tough decision. I came very close to just putting a new entertainment system in my Avant and driving it for another 100k miles.

The other new cars that were serious contenders were the BMW Sports Wagon, Volvo V90, Land Rover Evoque and the A4 sedan (with the manual). The BMW drove well, but the interior looked like it was from 2008 and it didn't have any spare. The Volvo looked like it would be nice, but in my opinion it's to heavy a car to have a 4 cyl as the only engine option. The Evoque was fun, but it's cargo area was too small. The A4 sedan was very nice, but I guess I wanted the wagon more than the manual. If the BMW had a manual it probably would have won out even with the outdated interior.

CoMeader

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I'll make sure to have the Continentals road force balanced when they go back on in May and see if we find a problem. My dealer has also said they will work to resolve the issue when I put the original tires back on since there was a potential problem with them at delivery.

The Allroad definitely tramlines on several sections of grooved concrete I drive every day, but that wasn't what I was feeling.

I don't know how the tires were balanced at the factory. I suspect they were only spin balanced when they were put back on after the problem with the Nokians as they were only expected to be on for a few days. I had the Blizzaks road forced balanced. Since the Blizzak were able to be properly balanced on the existing wheels and the issue went away I'm left thinking it's a tire issue.

bob m

What is road forced balanced as opposed to spin balance?

CoMeader

Road force balancing is basically balancing the tire under simulated load as opposed to spin balancing which does not simulate a load on the tire.

Road Force Balancing | MotorWeek

Some vehicles are more sensitive to balance issues and road force balancing makes them much smoother. On my LR3 I just spin balance because it doesn't make a noticeable difference and it's faster. On the Avant it makes a minor difference, but it's not an absolute requirement. However, on my roadster it's a miserable ride if I don't road force balance. If you don't make a specific request for road force balancing, most tire shops will just spin balance because it's faster and easier for them.