SimianSpeedster

Hard to believe I'm already at 5,000 miles, but the silver coupe goes in for her first service tomorrow. Unfortunately, there's also a list of issues that I need to bring to Audi's attention, most of them involving MMI tech. I have low expectations that the dealer will be able to address some of these issues, but I have to give them the opportunity:

-- The self-leveling headlight error has shown up twice at start (both sides), though it seems to clear upon restart. Also, the adaptive headlight warning icon lit up other day while I was driving, but no error message popped up.

-- The driver's seat "wiggles" a bit upon acceleration and braking, so I'm going to ask them to check to make sure nothing is loose.

-- MMI/Nav system often fails to provide traffic info even when 4G connection showing good signal strength, and the system crashes fairly regularly (a couple times a week), so I'm going to ask them to troubleshoot and update the software as necessary.

-- MMI can read iPhone contacts/addresses, but can't navigate to them. I read the running forum thread about this, and it appears that Audi doesn't have a reasonable solution here (having to manually add a limited number of contacts to Audi's online service is, frankly, dumb).

-- Music playback always starts when the car is started no matter what state that MMI was in when the car was powered down. I haven't found a setting to change this, and it's definitely annoying. Ever other car I've ever owned remembered the previous state of the stereo/multimedia playback upon shutdown, and returned to that state at startup. Feels like a garden variety bug.

None of these issues are fatal individually, but annoyances tend to add up and turn into frustrations in time, and I'm getting there. For all the marketing that Audi is throwing around about their awesome technology, I hope they can work out the bugs tomorrow.

SD_Dave

I had the headlight error also. Dealer found the code, but no problem. The issue has never returned (I'm at 8k miles).


See my thread on AudiConnect disconnect. This is my symptom exactly. Dealer has installed new computer, antenna, SIM card, modem, wiring. No resolution after 5 visits and 28 days out of service. I am sadly pursuing a buyback. If they fix it - let me know!

i3adSaab

What do you mean by this? I have two separate seemingly random issues:

I've posted that I get random MMI system crashes, the entire thing including nav/phone/music has to reboot. I thought I was the only one seeing this?

I also get my data connection crashing randomly (not MMI). It didn't happen for a week, now it just happened 5 minutes into a drive from my house this morning. It will freeze up the map application, keep getting error messages about no connection, but the rest of MMI will work.

I agree,....these are just annoyances, but I wish it would work more smoothly overall.

SD_Dave

To clarify my problems - no crashes, just lack of traffic data/online services.

brandonis

Probably too late for this but maybe have them also check to see if the screen doesn't show that drive mode has been changed back to normal after a restart.

Meaning: If while on in sport/dynamic, turn car off, turn back on, screen shows that car is in sport/dynamic but is actually in normal. I have to cycle through modes again to get screen in sync with active drive mode.

...maybe just happening to mine? I have a similar list to bring up when I take mine in.

SimianSpeedster

I don't enjoy being negative, but I have to vent a bit. I took my car to the dealer closest to my work for the sake of convenience, but based on my experience so far, their competence is very much in doubt. The short version:

-- 3 weeks ago, I made a service appointment online and spelled out in detail the issues with my car. I checked the boxes indicating I preferred a callback from a service advisor and that I needed shuttle service to get to/from work.
-- With 2 days to go until my appointment, I didn't hear from anyone at the dealer, so I called in to confirm the details. A service advisor looked at the notes and said the service should take no more than the day. They hadn't prepared for a shuttle, so the service advisor said he'd set it up.
-- I brought the car in on Friday, and though I took the first appointment of the day (7:30AM), no service advisors had arrived yet, so one of the porters started taking notes. I'll give him credit for trying to be helpful, but his notes were not accurate. For example, when I described the headlight warning, he jotted down "headlights not working" and on and on.
-- After waiting about 10 minutes, a service advisor arrived and wanted to start over. I told him that I entered all the details online, but he said he needed to re-type everything in, so we started over. I asked him again if he thought that the car would be ready same day and he said yes, and he promised a call later in the day to confirm. Though I asked twice, they hadn't setup shuttle service, so they scrambled to find someone to give me a ride to work (30 minutes later than expected given all the delays).
-- As of 3:45PM, I hadn't heard any news, so I called to check on the car. They said the service advisor was on the line with another customer, but would call me back next. 30 minutes later, still no call, so I checked again and they said they couldn't find the service advisor. I asked if someone could just let me know if the car would be ready and they said there were no notes in the system, so they had no idea. They asked me to try back again in a bit.
-- I called again at 4:30PM, waited on hold for about 10 minutes, and finally talked to the service advisor. They completed the 5,000 mile service, but nothing else. There were no notes in the system and the techs were leaving for the day, so still no info. They said they'd have a shuttle at my building in 15 minutes and they'd have answers by the time I arrived and a loaner car ready to go. I went downstairs to wait for the shuttle which arrived 15 minutes late.
-- When I got to the dealer, they still had no answers and no loaner car ready, so I spent another 25 minutes there waiting for them to figure things out (I also asked to the service manager who was not helpful). They said they had their best tech looking at my car, but he got pulled off on another job. They also said they needed to get direct advice from Audi NA for how to geal with the technical issues (crashing nav module and missing traffic data) so they couldn't proceed without that info. Even though they had that info mid-afternoon, they never bothered to call and provide me with any update so I could adjust my plans.
-- Best of all, the service advisor criticized me for making my appointment online. He said if I had called an explained the issues with my car, they would have immediately known that the service would take more than a day and set me up with a loaner. I reminded him that I asked for a callback when I made the appointment, and when none was received, I called in and reviewed the details. I also reminded him that he had the opportunity to reset my expectations that morning and set me up with a loaner, but everyone assured me that I'd be in an out same day. Blaming the customer is never a good strategy, especially when your facts are wrong.
-- As the final insult, both the service advisor and manager suggested that I take the car home and "they could try again later." I told them that was less convenient for me than leaving the car, so I took the loaner and told them that I expected an update by mid-day Monday.

So, in the end, I have little confidence in this dealer to service my car moving forward, let alone troubleshoot the technology issues. When the shuttle picked me up, we also picked up another customer who had waited 2 business for the dealer to complete his 25,000 mile service. He was so frustrated that he was picking up his car and taking it to an independent shop, but given my warranty issues, I need to let some dealer work on my car. FWIW, the service advisor said they couldn't find a TSB that applied to my car in relation to the Nav/MMI issues, they don't think a software update is available (but they were unsure), but they noted something about a similar issue on the A6/A7 which might apply to my car (which didn't make much sense to me since those models use a completely different MMI system). He also said I might be able to find an update online and trying updating the software myself. Even if that were possible, is that really the message they want to be sending to customers?

This has been the worst dealer experience I can remember, and it's not over yet. The TTS feels a bit like a computer on wheels, and though I am plenty IT savvy, Audi needs to step up, make sure their new tech works as expected, and ensure that their dealers are prepared to support all the tech that they're selling. I'm going to give this dealer Monday to try to figure things out, and if they don't demonstrate more competence, it might be time to look for another dealer because these guys don't inspire confidence. I'm trying to stave off feelings of regret for buying a new, unproven car.

SimianSpeedster

To clarify my Nav/MMI issues in response to other replies, my Nav module crashes an average of a couple times each week, but the rest of the MMI system seems to stay up. I only recall the music/media module crashing 2-3 times total in the time I've had the car. The Nav module almost always recovers gracefully in about 30 seconds, but the traffic data often takes minutes to return if at all (sometimes it doesn't recover). Also, I frequently find that the traffic data is simply missing during my drive even when the Nav module doesn't crash. Most of the time it returns within 5-10 minutes, but I have gone over an hour without traffic data at least twice.

i3adSaab

Wow....where's this dealer again?

Computer on wheels, that's a perfect statement......I feel like I'm dealing with Microsoft, everyone points left.

Yesterday drove an hour to the coast. My data connection crashed in 10 min, but nav continued to work.....but data doesn't restart once it crashes so I have no traffic. On the way home, of course the data never crashed and everything worked perfectly.

It's the randomness that drives me nuts.

Huey52

Indeed. Intermittent faults are the devil incarnate. Just when you think you've identified a pattern all's well.

I guess I've just been lucky as no drops in connection whatsoever. Although recently I got notified of a traffic jam just after I was in it, but that's a horse of a different color.

i3adSaab

Realistically, I think Waze is way better for traffic detection. So whenever I know I'm going anywhere near potential choke points, I'll use Waze.

It's just that the data connection should always work. What makes it worse is there doesn't seem to be a way to restart it without turning the ignition off for a certain amount of minutes. If I could do a reset it would help with the frustrations.