sentah

First time audi buyer and have a few doubts regarding the Audi Connect.

I have 3 months subscription to Sirius XM and 6 months subscription to Audi Connect. I have been using the Google Maps and it does look neat indeed.

What i would like to know is, once this subscription is over, am not planning to renew the Data Plan as it is expensive, is there a way we can use the phone's blutooth capability to power the data connection ?

Also what happens to Google Maps updates, does it require Audi Connect data connection ? Can we update the google maps anyway other than being on a data plan ?

Inyoury

Congrats on your new car. I also have the 2016 model.

Sirius: After my 3 month free trial finished. I got a call and ignored them. I got another call and a few days later and I realized I missed the business/news stations. So I told them I wasn't interested in it much and wanted a short subscription again to "explore" the service. So they gave me 6 months for $29.99. They told me after 6 months is finished, they would bill my card and enroll me for a full year at a much higher price. I then asked if I could cancel before the roll over and they said I could, so I did. My friend told me at the end of the 6 months they will offer the same $29.99 for another 6 months. So keep doing the same and you will pay about $5 per month plus taxes.

Audi connect is nice, but the AT&T LTE on the car is slower than the LTE of the phones. The plans are expensive if you sign on after your trial. But if you are an AT&T customer like me, you can add the car as a "device" to your plan for $10 per month and the car will share your data plan. Now AT&T gives free data upgrades to everyone who has the 10GB per month to 15GB per month. So I did that and we (my wife and I) consistently use only 8.5-9 GB of data per month between the two of us. So I figure the extra 6GB of data for my car later will be more than enough. The added benefit for us to change our plan was that we could still be contract free and we can make calls for free to Canada to our friends and family over there. If we kept our original plan, we would not get the free calls and have less data for the exact same fee per month ($142.26 total bill after taxes and fees).

You can't power the car's internet with your phone via Bluetooth or by any cord. There is a separate telecom antenna and wiring locked to AT&T and some third party provider services.

If you don't have AT&T, there are other plans for the data on the car. You can search on this forum since this is a common topic.

The maps can be updated from your my Audi site on the Internet, downloaded to a SD card and installed directly to your car.

There is a bit of a confusion as so how many times you can do it for free in a given time. Still haven't gotten a clear answer from Audi. The wording on the website opens to many interpretations. I called Audi USA and Audi tech something... They both had different things to say as well as the dealer service manager and the tech expert at the dealership.

When you do download the files, the whole map for the US is going to be about 13GB and expanded, over 15GBs. So make sure you do it at night and have it downloading at night if your internet is slow. If your have Verizon FIOS 75/75 like me, it took about 30 minutes. But that was around 1 am. Installing to the car, I don't know. I let it run whenI had a long drive and noticed it was finished later that day.

I hope this answers your questions.

Enjoy your car!

Fithian

I understand that the Audi Connect ATT free trial is 6 months, but when I check my account it says an additional 30 months was added; not sure what that means. Quote:

Your 6-month wireless service by AT&T is valid until August 26, 2018.

jasonlitka

The trial isn't 6 months, it's 6 months plus 6GB.

broccx

Please explain

Inyoury

You get the 6 months unlimited data trial of Audi connect. After that, they give you 6GB of data that you can use. Once you use up the data, you will have to pay for the service (but audi connection to plan, add audi to your AT&T add a device plan, etc...)

Fahrer

I have had my 2016 A6 now for about 5 months now. The Google maps are a cool gimmick but unnecessary. After reading about the improved traffic data accuracy over what is available from SiriusXM, I am not convinced. If I were able to get the SiriusXM traffic for my Audi like I did for my VW Touareg at $40/yr, I would do it. The AudiConnect services ( news, weather, etc) offer little value to me. As far as internet LAN connection is concerned, I drive mostly alone so no use there. Anyone with reliable information on cheaper alternatives for traffic info? ( other than portable nav). To me AudiConnect is mostly a gimmick..... not seeing the value.

Ricckky

Thanks for the info, Inyoury. I didn't realize I was in an 'unlimited data' period. I was actually looking for this thread last week but couldn't remember the title. I'm nearing my 3 month anniversary and was considering renewing Sirus. The deal they keep mailing and emailing to me is for the Select subscription, which doesn't include streaming. But I find myself only listening to music stations and using the streaming more than the actual radio. I'll give them a call and see how willing they are to keep me as a customer.

Ricckky

The only thing that comes to my mind would be an app like Waze or something that uses crowdsourcing data if you want "almost" real-time traffic. But I thought Google bought Waze so maybe Google Maps will use the same crowdsourcing traffic data info sooner or later?


But yeah the standard maps are good enough for me, I don't use the Google Maps. I use a Garmin when I'm traveling in a rental car and it has traffic too, but gives me the option to reroute when it detects traffic. Not sure if Audi nav does that automatically (doesn't seem like it) but I do wish it would have that option.

Inyoury

Audi navigation reroutes as it detects the traffic very well. Almost as good as Waze. When you have the route mapping on (engaged) and heading to a destination, the top right side of the navigation it says "save time". When you click the top right button near the rotating **** it takes you to the option to reroute to the faster route. It will tell you how much time you save by going on the new route.

I would suggest you reading the manual...