fresnoboy

Guys, hey, I just got our new 2016 A7 today - Prestige and Drivers innovation package. It's an upgrade from my 2012 A7 that just came off lease.

Some of the differences that I noticed in the first drive:

1) The telematics is much faster and more responsive.

2) The AT&T LTE connection is definitely a lot better than the older T-mo 3G I had in the car.

3) The car doesn't have a sports package, but the 3 spoke steering wheel came standard, not the normal 4 spoke one.

3) S-line badges were also standard, even though that's supposed to only be included in the sports package

4) Waving your foot under the rear bumper to open the liftgate is very unreliable for me - does this work only when the car is locked?

5) The HUD works pretty well, though can't be placed higher in the field of view as I would like. The NAV info seems only to be displayed prior to a turn or course charge - not continuously. I like having it always there, though I suppose having one of the MFD's display continually makes this less of a bother.

6) The bluetooth audio seems to connect right away, and not after the phone book syncs (big win over the 2012). The phone book seems to have 3 or 4 entries for each of my contacts - not sure why this is happening.

7) The Jukebox is now only 10 GB in size and can only store 3000 tracks. Why bother with a jukebox if you are going to shrink it?

8) It now seems to pick up album art from my SD card tracks. Not sure if this is coming from gracenote via the LTE link, or from embedded album art

9) There is an option in the MMI settings to take traffic data from online sources instead of Sirius - Yay! Sirius traffic blew chunks compared with Google. Nav system also gave me aural warnings about congestion ahead in the route, and traffic displays seemed to indicate its data was better than Sirius, but will need to play with it.

10) Twitter and FB are supported in the MMI, but not sure how to use them or what role? Private tweets of locations where the car was parked and when it started moving again might be useful, but no idea how to set this up.

11) What's the deal with playing music (and video too?) from a WiFI device? It looks like they implemented uPNP - is this supposed to be an alternative to tracks on a USB stick or SD card?

12) Auto start stop was much nicer than I thought it would be. Its still annoying, but works decently. Does it actually save any gas? Am not going to tell the wife about it and will see her reaction - "Honey the car is broken!"

More on changes from 2012 as I pick them up. Very nice.

Thx
Mike

jasonlitka

Regarding #9, traffic data and online services come from Inrix now. They're the same ones that provide BMW's "Enhanced" traffic. It's way better than Sirius but not as good as Waze.

jjsC6

I just noticed the other day that my 2015 shows more than one entry per person in the phone book. I even looked at my contacts on Outlook where they come from and there is only one entry. But in the car, after one of the entries it seems to have the name and some information after the name - I don't recall now, either phone number or e-mail address.

slickrick68

which tires are on your 2016, and do you like them?

fresnoboy

They are pirelli 255/40R19's. They seem pretty sticky and reasonably quiet, but haven't driven in rain yet or have much experience yet. The new wheels look better - hopefully they will stay cleaner than the old ones that were a dirt magnet.

One more interesting feature - you can update the mmi software from the control screens via online, USB, or DVD. It looks like at least the mmi feature updates won't need to be applied by the dealer anymore. Or at least can be. When registering at the Audi my connect site, it can check to see if new software updates are available and download them. This bodes will for things like carplay and android auto coming soon...

Also from reading the manual it appears if you have a dead battery, the shifter will be frozen. There is a new procedure for using a pin to unlock the shifter using a little lever in the ashtray to put it in neutral for towing. Nice to know ahead of time.

And the TPMS system will now tell you which tire is deflated - my 2012 would just tell me there was problem and to check the tires, but didn't designate which tire had the issue.

THX
Mike

fresnoboy

Yeah, I will have to do some debugging with the phone to deal with this.

Also, the 2016 model allowed notification of SMS and emails via Bluetooth, and can even read the messages to you. I don't know if this works with Android, but will play with it this week and see if I can get it to work.

THX
Mike

simonaitch

#4 stop the one legged waggling disco dancing attempt ! Imagine there's a football just under your trunk, give it a swift kick about halfway up the imaginary ball and remove foot from vicinity immediately. I kick just to the right of my plate. 100% success.