Black headliner
 

I ordered my 2017 A4 in February and took delivery in April. I ordered what I later found out was the Atlas Beige Leather ZE interior. The small graphic of what the interior looks like with each interior color scheme is very incomplete. It did not clearly show that this color scheme has a black headliner.

When I got into my car at the dealer, I loved it overall. But a few hours into it I had a funny feeling that something wasn't right. That's when I said, "OMG, the headliner is black!" I didn't know there was such a thing. Every headliner I had seen in any car up to that point was white, light gray, or light beige. Since I got a black headliner, I have seen a few here and there. I believe that the headliner color is an important feature and should be clearly stated in Audi's configurator and product literature.

I tried to get Audi to replace it with a beige headliner but they wouldn't do it. I'm still unhappy about that. I ordered my A4 before there were any in the showrooms so I wasn't able to make a selection based on seeing a real interior. Probably most dealers have a good selection that you can choose from but in case you want to order one sight unseen, below I have listed the color of the headliner for each color scheme. This information is not available on the web site. I got a table from the Audi Customer Experience link available on the My Audi web site:

Black Leather YM – Titanium Gray headliner
Rock Gray Leather ZG – Titanium Gray headliner
Atlas Beige leather ZE – Black headliner
Atlas Beige Leather ZI – Atlas Beige headliner
Nougat Brown Leather ZK – Black headliner

Note that there are two Atlas Beige interiors. The ZE interior is mostly black with beige seats, beige armrests, and beige console. The ZI interior has Granite Grey carpeting, beige seats, armrests, and door panels. The dash is listed as Granite Grey/Atlas Beige. And it has an Atlas Beige headliner as noted earlier.

I was a vociferous critic of the configurator in my messages to Audi. Compare the very useful interior renderings in the BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus web sites. One voice was not enough to influence any changes. It's the same as it was in February.

This is bizarre. The order guide for Canada (where ZI isn't available) shows the titan grey headliner with the ZE atlas beige interior.

Your car has no sport/S-Line (depending on the market) package?

The table I took this from is for the stock combinations. If you order the Sport Package, the web site does specify a black headliner. These combinations are the same for the Premium, Premium Plus, and Prestige. I've never looked at the S4 configuration.

Does your car have the same headliner/interior as this one? Gotland Green Metallic - 2017 Audi A4 2.0T Premium quattro - Atlas Beige Interior | GTCarLot.com - Vehicle Archive #115273067

The window sticker says, "Atlas Beige/Black". That's what my window sticker says. Looking at the photos, the headliner looks gray. So do the carpets. My carpets are black. So I'm wondering if there is something a little funky about the color quality of the photos. The picture of the door panel (row 7, center picture) is like my car.

Fwiw the A-pillar does change color on the configurator between the two beige options but I see your point how it could easily be missed.

I agree that there is a difference, and the ZI headliner is a beige-ish color in the picture. But the ZE A-pillar (the only representation of the headliner color) is a lighter color than black. No reasonable person who looks at that little picture would assume that the headliner is black.

Seems to me that if nothing else, the web site should specifically say "black headliner". Better yet, they should have more of a panoramic view of the interior like BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes does. The Mercedes configurator gives you the ability to scan 360 degrees.

Yes, it would be nice if they were more specific about this. When I was first looking, I had a hard time finding out which interiors have which headliners. I ended up getting one with a sport package, but prior to deciding to do that, I wanted a black headliner but was unable to get confirmation of which interiors had that. I suspected the Nougat interior had the black headliner, but the dealer seemed to be unsure.

Weird. I would think only the S-Line packages with Sport Seats (Nougat, Rock Grey, Black) would have the black headliner. It looks like the car in the link is a "hybrid" of sorts because it has the S-Line EXTERIOR but no sport seats because they aren't available in Atlas Beige. I wasn't aware that S-Line could be ordered only for the exterior (not that I would have been interested). Maybe the headliner is black because the carpets are black. That makes sense to me, but yes, it should have been made clearer during the ordering process.

Isn't the S-Line exterior standard on U.S. market Premium Pluses and Prestiges?

(And meanwhile, in Canada, you get the S-Line exterior as part of the S-Line package that includes the sport seats, the lowered suspension, the steering wheel, etc)