irenesbob

Thanks - but I suspect snagit is less "****" and "un-hinged" than I am, so he can probably live with this, while it drives me nuts lol

I posted this topic today on the Q5 board and haven't gotten assurances yet a Q5 would be better.

pat clark

We've got both in our house Bob. 2010 Q5 and 2012 A6. My experience is that they are about the same but don't tell my wife please. Drive fast and don't look down.

snagitseven

Bob, all kidding aside, I get what you're saying but I think we have different thresholds of "defect" tolerance re the instrument cluster material. Or, perhaps mine isn't as bad as yours. I do have some swirls, but after after the first few months, it doesn't bother me all that much since I only notice them when the sun hits the plastic just right (and I wouldn't say my plastic is "cloudy").

Frankly, there are other things that annoy me more like the electric steering (which I am mostly used to now but still bothers me at times). Bottom line for me, none of the A6 shortcomings or design "defects" are enough to prevent me from buying another one down the road - IMO there are so many pluses that outweigh the minuses. No car is perfect and I'm sure if I switched to another brand, there would be other things that would be annoying or disappointing. Take a stroll over at the BMW or Lexus forums and you can see what I mean. Unfortunately, I don't believe there's any way to get by completely unscathed.

DB22

I think that just about all cars have soft plastic lenses in front of the gauges and the only way to stop the issue posted by the OP is to treat the lens as a very expensive lens with an expensive optical coating. I.E. blow the dust off instead of using a cloth. If the lens is really dirty then you should use a lens cleaning cloth with lens cleaner solution. The other problem is that the dealership thinks that they are doing you a favor by cleaning the car after a service but they never take the care necessary to not scratch the lens so even if you take great care it doesn't mean that dealers or detailers will use the same finesse.

jasonlitka

That was my first WTF moment when I got my S6 last month. I hadn't noticed it when I test drove.

Hulamau

Really ... how dare they! I can find 1,500 things in either of those Chevy's that would literally drive me bonkers relative to a lens cover debate and the totality of what makes an A6 what it is.

I'm not sure there has ever been a car made that everyone is 100% happy with in all aspects. Write Audiusa and Ingoldstadt with the complaint, maybe enough others have responded about it as well too and your letter becomes the final straw to collectively inspire a change?

In any event, I'd take a breath too before seriously considering throwing the baby out due to a little bathwater.

Hulamau

The two size holder is in the A4 too, and a good number of cars have that two size bottle holder deal, think the narrow one is to hold the skinny metal coffee thermos' a lot of people prefer without it flopping around and sloshing hot coffee everywhere when doing '0-62mph' time trials on the way to work :-) plus it fits a typical 16 to 20 ounce single water bottle perfectly while the larger one mainly is for big boy drinks.

Obviously, the holder is not made to accommodate the American habit of both front seat passengers slurping down 64 ounce guzzlers on the way home from work :-)

irenesbob

I talked to the folks at Expel about them custom cutting pieces to go over instrument clusters, kind of like the screen protectors for mobile phone and digital cameras. They said it would likely work, but had no real interest in making them. They suggested I couid buy a piece (there is a minimum size like 1 sq. yd.) and mess around cutting it to fit. I can’t even cut a piece of wax paper (see how truly old I am) to wrap a sandwich in, so I declined. I feel better venting, but I do think there are issues with material Audi uses (molecular or otherwise – lol). I have given my friend’s Forester and several rentals really rough, almost abrasive torture tests and their cheapo plastic lenses hold up fine. Look at the clear lids on certain tubes of Pringles. I took one home that I had bought at an airport and tested it – it is like 1000% more scratch resistant than my A6’s instrument cluster lens – sometimes cheap stuff is the best : (

jasonlitka

The issue is not that they're different sizes, but that the left one doesn't have the little grippers. It's useless if you don't have the exact bottle/mug that it was designed to hold.

There's two scenarios that could have played out on this one. First, the left cupholder was designed for the favorite coffee mug of the lead designer. Second, they decided that the best size cupholder they could have made was the right one, realized they couldn't fit two, and then rather than redesign the console to be slightly wider or be bold and only fit one, they added a second smaller one without grippers because they take too much room.

I'm betting on number two, but it strikes me as a little half-assed for the Germans...

snagitseven

Hmm. Both of mine have those very robust 200 psi spring loaded "grippers".