Ale70

Good morning everybody!

First post for me. Currently owning a 2012 A8L and a 2015 A6 and live in Long Island, NY.

I would like to ask the owners of the new A8 (the one with Matrix highlights) if there are any real differences with mine.

My A8L is up in August and I'm debating if I should get a new one, or wait for the Prologue inspired A8 (though I assume that will be at least an 18 months wait).

Thank you for every input and looking forward to get involved in this forum!

Ale

derfA8L

Welcome. Although there are no U.S. A8s with the Matrix lights (not legal in U.S. at this point), there may be a few European owners here that can chime in. As far as the newly designed LED headlights are concerned, there is no difference in illumination vs. the pre-facelift LED lights that I can tell---if you currently do not have LED lights, there will be a big difference in brightness, color and light pattern.

With regard to the next generation D5 A8, don't expect that to arrive for customer delivery in North America until Fall 2017 as a 2018 MY.

Ale70

Thank you for your reply! You mean to tell me that the new headlights that look like the Matrix, are not actually Matrix???

Ale70

And so, being that I have full LED on my current A8L, there's nothing really new?

jakematic

Other than the topview camera and styling... no major changes, except of course for the motor.

Nope, not matrix LED - derf has a detailed post on it some time back.
Apparently the US gooberment thinks people are too stoopid to be able to use automatic lighting and must have a button

Trying to decide on what to do myself, also being in a 2012.

ps- Welcome to AudiWorld !

derfA8L

There are some changes/improvements...

Styling changes: redesigned front and rear lighting; new front hood and front grill work; new rear bumper and lower rear valance, including rear exhausts integrated in rear bumper; new emphasized rear trunk lid spoiler. New Galvano wheels for Sports Package.

Chassis/Suspension: additional soundproofing insulation added; improved front suspension strut dampers to reduce harmonic noise and vibration from traveling to cabin.

Technology/Features: HUD display now availabe --- displays current speed, pre-sense proximity warning, pedestrian/large animal alerts); Night Vision Assistant now has alerts for large animals including deer.

jakematic

That is a nice feature.

When the rather soft bong goes off for pre-sense I always find myself going "WTH was that?" looking down, and thinking "Crap! I shouldn't be looking here right now!"
Everything else is part of my regular scan of the gauges at non critical moments, so I've never seen a HUD being of any value.
I can tell how fast I'm going via normal body sensing of inertia

Doesn't work with polarized sunglasses though does it ?
Ordered non-polarized by mistake once and immediately replaced them... some of us need a prescription pair

RED HORSE

HUD doesn't work with my polarized prescription sunglasses ------ unless I tilt my head to the side. The question in my mind is can the lenses be turned 90 degrees for grinding and then allow me to see the HUD?

jakematic

We have a Dr. of Optometry amongst our ranks so am interested to hear his thoughts.

What I can't figure out is all modern computer monitors, including the MMI screen, work fine.
Used to be if I had to check an email at my desk before leaving I'd have to switch glasses again...

Seaclav

Depends on how the direction of polarity of the glasses and the display line up. Most polarized lenses completely block light vibrating along one plane, say N-S, and completely allow light vibrating on the other plane, say E-W, with a gradual decrease as you move from one plane to the other.
Many LCD (or it's refracted and reflected corollaries) displays save energy by putting out light dominantly aligned along a single plane. So if your glasses and your display happen to line up the 'wrong' way, you won't be able to see a thing.

With the sunglasses I wore at the time, I couldn't read anything on the nav display on my D3.

I believe it's mostly luck, as to get complete occlusion the polarity of lens and display have to line up pretty closely, so most viewing pairs should have ~150+ degrees where there's decent visibility.

Unless you're a complete slave to the ludicrous end of fashion, I'm pretty sure it's cheaper to replace sunglasses than a D4 :-)