rsilvers129

When I was a kid I sat in my friend's father's new Jaguar with beige seats. I had a ballpoint pen in my back pocket. It put blue ink on the seat. The reason why I still remember it is because I appreciated the niceness of the car and was unhappy with what happened. With a black or dark brown seat, it would not have mattered.

NorthwestB9

It's certainly worth a shot if you don't want a custom paint job. If you do, then 2018 custom order is the only way to go. I asked my dealer to look across the country for either a scuba blue or matador red with nougat brown seats, and only two showed up in the whole country. One was being routed to Seattle with sports package and ventilated seats while the other was going to Houston without the sports package and standard seats, of course. I ended up taking the one going to Houston. Both were 2018 models. There were no 2017 models available in my color combinations. So like I said, it's hit or miss. It's worth a shot looking, but whether you can find one is anyone's guess.

rsilvers129

So, my dealer came up with one car. I found the other two with simple searches at home. They were not trying to find me more cars except from dealers they like to trade with. They told me their system would show every car within 250 miles, but that was not true at all.

farmerjones

I'm pretty sure the poster not asking about special paint. He is asking if he could order sport seats in beige via a custom order.

The answer is yes...you can do an Audi Exclusive order and get virtually any seat color and style combination IF you are willing to pay for the special order and wait 4+months to be custom-built. A scuba blue car with beige sport seats is an option if you are willing to spend a substantial amount of money to do it.

I for one am stoked that Audi allows you this option of customization, even if the price is pretty outrageous. I likely will order my next Audi in this manner with a three-color interior combination, and I don't really care if it costs $10,000 to do it. I'm gonna get exactly what I want and be the only car in the world like it.

oskidunker

correct. We do not want a special paint. Just sport seats with beige interior. Scuba blue outside. Will see how excited the salesman I use will be to place this kind of order. Usually they want to sell what they have. There are some scuba blue but all have black interior. I haven’t even been able to find a gray interior within 500 miles. She might go for that.

Why do most dealers have every car with black interior? Had an A 6 with beige interior and dark wood accents. Dark blue outside. Was a beautiful car.

Would be curious to what mind set demands black interior. Cool? Incognito. I see young kids walking around all in black at night. Seems very boring to me. I guess that is what sells and probably cheaper for the manufacturer.

farmerjones

It's so frustrating that dealers order almost their entire inventory in black. I've been told Audi has production set up in a way that dealers often are simply allocated a glut of cars to take without actually deciding on color/options. So it's not all the dealer's fault for the poor color choices. In the end it's all about Audi saving money. It's easy to simply order a huge number of black interiors at a savings from suppliers, because suppliers have fewer variations of colored components to supply. Just order up 90% of your parts in black and crank them out on the assembly line. Sadly somewhere along the way someone got the crazy idea that all black interiors are super-cool, like they are luxurious and sporty and exclusive. I find that ridiculous. Talk about driving in a dull, drab, dark cave where there is no ability to see craftsmanship or style choices - it all just blends into some big black blob. Now even black and grey wood has to be used to turn the cabin into a 100% dark pit. So customers just buy what dealers have, and dealers just have all black, because that's what customers want - look at how many black interiors customers buy!!!! WRONG. Customers are only buying them because that's all you build, not because they want them. It seriously is getting crazy, and enthusiast are going to be forced to special order almost any car at this point because of the lack of selection. Oh wait, they are not all black...some are gray!!! Yeah for gray, what a great alternative to black. Are you feeling my sarcasm there, LOL?!?!?!

VM

But Audi offers beige/grey interiors... and if you're in the U.S., you can even get the 'full' beige/grey interiors which have a whole lot of interior parts in beige/grey that would be black otherwise. (Here in Canada, you can't get the full beige/grey interiors, only beige/grey seats, and I'm convinced it's because they don't want to stock parts for the other colours)

Fundamentally, do they make more money making 80% black, 10% beige and 10% grey as opposed to 50% black, 25% beige, and 25% grey? Any cost savings on the black are probably offset by extra costs from the lower scale on beige/grey.

I read that book about the VW scandal a few months ago, I can't remember the title right now, but one of the things they mentioned was that VW senior management (F. Piech mostly) preferred dark grey interiors while VW US managers wanted more black interiors because that's what U.S. buyers wanted.

One other thing I've always found interesting: European cars traditionally had black seats + grey headliner. Japanese cars (Mazda, I'm looking at you) tend to have black seats, black headliners. Now the Germans are switching to black headliners, at least in the sport packages...

VM

First, let me preface this by saying that I am a huge fan of non-black interiors who ordered a 'Canadian-spec grey' (i.e. grey seats, black dash/etc) interior.

That being said, I think that we are in the minority. A couple of reasons why black interiors might be seen as popular:
1) beige interiors are seen as 'old person' cars. Black makes people insecure about aging feel younger.
2) black interiors are seen as much less likely to get dirty
3) black interiors are seen as much sportier... and based on the popularity of things like sport packages, etc, I think a lot of people want a sportier-looking car

farmerjones

[QUOTE=VM;25050359] (Here in Canada, you can't get the full beige/grey interiors, only beige/grey seats, and I'm convinced it's because they don't want to stock parts for the other colours)......... VW senior management (F. Piech mostly) preferred dark grey interiors while VW US managers wanted more black interiors because that's what U.S. buyers wanted./QUOTE]

You are right....it is all about money, and choosing to build mostly black in no way indicates this is what buyers WANT. Buyers are SETTLING for black because it's way to much hassle (or time and money) to wait around for other choices to be available.

Just scan the forums from Audi, BMW, Volvo, MB, Lexus.....there is an ENDLESS parade of comments about their frustration with only having all-black interiors in stock or limited options to order other colors. I worked in the auto industry for years, and trust me...there is a large percentage of the population that does not like black interiors. Look at all the S4 or TT owners searching out the red interiors, or how many A8s are sold with the brown leathers, or R8s that have special-ordered leather/stitching colors. You can't say no one wants other colors if you never give them the opportunity to buy the other colors because predominately the only option the dealer has available is all-black. Also noice how many other interior color options are available if you live in Europe, they have WAY more choices (most of which we have never even seen here). Buyers are not asking for all black, the are settling for all black - and Audi gladly streamlines production and reaps the benefits, laughing all the way to the bank.

VM

Well, if people are frustrated by Audi... they should take a look at the Japanese. In Canada, you cannot get an Acura TLX with a non-black interior unless you get... black or white exterior, IIRC. (The U.S. market gets more combinations) They have a beautiful blue colour that is only available with black! And then there's Infiniti, which considers non-black interiors to be a 'sold order only' option on the Q50, i.e. by definition you will not find one in inventory.

I don't see how Audi is streamlining production by building 80%-90% black. They still have to get all the non-black parts for the remaining 10-20% cars.

Personally, I think this is dealer driven. Around here, dealers especially for European brands tend to stock white/silver/black cars, presumably all with black interiors, and I've had sales guys say 'oh yes, we have people who say they want a blue or red or whatever car, but when it comes down to it, they want their new car now and they'll take a white/silver/black from inventory.' Frankly, I don't understand that - I am spending a LOT of money on my car (which, it's worth noting, is more a toy for me than it would be for others as I don't drive to work) and I certainly wouldn't spend that kind of money on a car that was the wrong colour or had the wrong equipment. And I've had some people who have seen my car comment positively on the colour combination, perhaps because they're so used to seeing white/silver/black German cars with black interiors and it's unusual to see a somewhat bright blue car with light grey seats.

The other thing, in terms of inventory management, is that people who care about colours likely tend to also be pickier about options and it's difficult to have the 'right' option combinations in inventory to satisfy those folks (especially in a smaller market).

One other thing I just thought of: back in 2008, when they launched the B8, they offered it in Aruba blue (which, frankly, was too bright for a car in the A4's price range, especially given the financial crisis) and dealers seemed to have one in inventory. I was told by one sales guy at one dealer that Audi Canada had required all dealers to order at least one Aruba blue car, which created an interesting blend of inventory. (And many of those cars were still sitting on the lots in April/May 2009) In MY2010, to my great sadness, they discontinued aruba blue in Canada... and didn't bring back a non-midnight blue until launching the darker scuba blue in 2012 or 2013.

I'm just glad that Audi, unlike some Asian automakers, actually allows custom orders. With some Asian automakers, the automaker builds what it feels like building and offers what it's built to dealers and if they don't feel like building the combination you want, even if the combination exists on their web site, no car for you until they feel like building one.