dkgreig

I can almost understand having a tailgate that opens by swiping your feet. That makes sense if you have suitcases in your hands. However, closing a station wagon’s tailgate with your feet is a terrible idea. Mine closes on my head almost every single time I reach deeply into the hatch.

This is a safety problem and a big inconvenience and I would like to disable it completely. Does anybody know how to do this? I would gladly pay to have this entire system removed from my car immediately. If not, perhaps I can put duct tape over something or disconnect a cable?. Thank you for any advice!

TropicGreenA4

I would think that being able to close it while your hands are full would be a benefit. I know I've come home from the grocery store and unloaded, but had to set things down in order to close the tailgate.

grbbenny

I agree - the same thing happens to me when I am leaning into or even kneeling in the cargo area. Annoying and dangerous.

Steve.w

I also agree - I understand the opening but the closing is very inconvenient and dangerous.
I dont know how to disable one without the other, but I've disabled both opening & closing using OBD11 as follows:
Comfort unit - gestic control timer 1 - changed from 2 to 10. Gestic control timer 2 changed from 1f to 10.
This has saved the problem but also stops it opening via foot gestures.
I haven't tried any variation on the above new values, so that might be worth trying!

AllroadCat

I first noticed it when my kids would sit back there while I put their soccer cleats on .... Now I just take my key out of my pocket and set it in the cargo area. It never tries again so I imagine there is some thing about it closing when they key is sitting in there.

Now if only I could figure out how to use the foot sweep to open thing when I have my arms full. Yeah, that would be great.

rich_r

Disappointing to hear that Audi hasn't figured out how to make the foot gesture thing work seamlessly. I have that feature on my current Range Rover Sport and love it...Land Rover cleverly put the sensor for it on the side (between the rear wheel and bumper) instead of the usual middle of the rear bumper location. This allows you to a) more accurately hit the sensor each time you want to use it b) prevents the scenario above where standing behind the car could potentially trigger it to close. c) means you dont have to stand back when you are trying to open it to avoid getting hit by the opening tailgate. Seems like such an obvious and better approach- really surprised no one else (that I know of) does this.

sparkyg

This is still safest path. Thanks Steve.

Jonathan S.

I am so glad to realize that I am not the only person to have inadvertently foot-triggered the closure!

The odd part though is that over ~70k miles on my previous hatch-equipped VAG vehicle, a 2019 VW Arteon, I never once inadvertently foot-triggered the closure.
(I also don't recall reading of any such complaint on the comparable forum for that vehicle.)
And the success rate for intentionally foot-triggering the opening was pretty much the same (maybe ~90%).

I wonder if the difference is not the sensing mechanism (which could be sourced from the same VAG parts bin) but instead something about the vehicle contours that lead us to place or feet further under the body of the vehicle when accessing the cargo area?

Mabs

Happens to me all the time, super annoying. Thanks I'm gonna give the obd11 change a try.

geckoquattro

I have a 23 premium plus, and i tired to do the footswipe and nothing happened.

Is the premium plus equipped? or is it only the presitge?