Electrics, brakes and steering died travelling at 70mph now waiting for replacement.
 

Interested to know if anyone here has had the same problem as me. I think my issues are very rare and in fact I may be the only person in the world thats developed the faults my car did, well I hope so.

Travelling at 70mph with three passengers onboard all the lights in the car flashed extreamly bright and then suddenly the car thought it was off, in fact i was travelling at 70mph with no braking or steering towards a junction. Luckily the car decided to restart, but not before taking at least 5 seconds to do so. I was fortunate in the fact that this was at night and no other cars were on the road.

Audi technical were called out, they registered numerous communications faults within the cars systems, basically nothing was talking to each other causing the car to totally shut down (apart from the engine).

After over a month of testing audi have been unable to find the route cause of the problem but have decided the car is dangerous and should be kept off the road. I am awaiting a replacement A6 S-Line to be built in germany and delivered.

I am hoping nobody else here have had any issues like this?

wow...that is incredibly scary that that happened. good to hear there were no injuries from this though.

It was very lucky that we got out ok. Everything started up just in time to be able to stop short of the barrier. Must say when the brakes do work they are effective. My family refused to get back into the car after that. The car is being shipped back to Germany I believe.

That's scary! I'm glad to hear everyone's okay, and that Audi has stepped up and given you a replacement.

I had a new Cadillac Eldorado do the same thing, the whole car just died. I had to go to neutral and restart manually. You can still brake and steer with the engine off, its just much harder.

Turned out my problem was a bad ground connection somewhere. Glad it turned out well for you and the family and you're getting a new car.

At the time that is what I assumed about the steering and braking when the power is gone, but actually with the all electric steering and the parking assist here in europe the brake pedal would not budge as the car thought it was in park and the steering was totally locked, so I had no use of either at all. Luckily i was going in a straight line.

Audi only stepped up after they worked out they had no way of fixing it as they have no idea why all the faults are showing. There is no way in hell i would let anyone travel in that car again.

I guess my only concern is that this is a problem that goes un-detected until in some cases it may be too late. I can just desribe is as being a bit like your house's power overloading, a massive flash and everything going off.

On a plus side im waiting on a nice new Ibis White, 3.0 TDi S-Line. They have thrown in alot of extras on my new car to say sorry.

Glad that you and passengers came safe, this is indeed scary, sounds like start/stop button was pushed or some short circuit occured that triggered to stop engine. I was looking at technical manual for A6 at:
http://152.66.93.29/audi/download/audi/A6/
It is amazing how many sensors A6 has, was it rainy/snowy when you had incident? not that rain or snow should cause it but good thing that all came out safe.

Start/stop defo not pushed. All the diagnostics show that the cars systems had communication failure between them, sopmething that seems to have been the case for weeks before hand. Effectively what happened was the same as what happens to your windows PC...it got confused and shut down.

btw, i have tried the start stop button when moving, it defo does not switch the car off when you are in motion, you must be stopped. even in neatral is has no effect if you are moving.

It was about 10 degrees and a clear night when it happened, so no water etc in any of the sensors. in the week leading up to this issue i noticed a ticking sound coming from the instrument cluster when you turned the car on, this ticking lasted up to 5 minutes. Apparently this would of been because of a systems communications error and some of the systems resetting. Anyone else come across a weird ticking sound?

I wonder if your experiment with the 'stop/start' button had anything to do with the failure. Even after the fact, I wonder if that could have caused the 'brain' a cramp. I think I will let someone else try that out before I do ! Best of luck and very glad nobody was injured.

chaff: was you car that failed a C7 model?

I unfortunately experienced something similar with my previous C6. I had only owned it a couple of weeks when it went haywire on me. Like you described, every imaginable warning light and fault came up and the car would shut down. Fortunately, the first time it happened in a parking garage. The next time I was traveling on the freeway went it happened and scared the you now what out of me. My dealer said they had never seen anything like it and over 40 fault codes came up, but each time they could not find the culprit. Even had a master tech from Audi corporate fly out with no luck. I finally submitted a lemon law claim and got Audi involved, and now I drive a brand new C7.

Yep my car was a C7. 4 months old and 5k on the clock

Well that pretty much sums out what I went through. I guess when you put mostly electronics and programming into the fold things can go wrong. I'm an aeronautical engineer and I know how easy it is for systems to confuse each other just because of a few lines of misplaced code.

WOW now this is disturbing!

Sure is.

A friend of mine in Germany owned a 5-series year ago, and it turn itself off at a certain location on his way home, happened several times.

We were working for an engineering company at the time and took some equipment out to measure for any sort of EMC (Electromagnetic compatibility) issues at the location, but weren't able to find anything. Since the car was pre-owned (1 year old), the dealer refused to do much work without him paying for service (no 4 year warranty in Germany for most cars). He ended up replacing most of the wiring and an ECU or two in the car ...

My current VW Passat has a curve where the ESP kicks in every time, even though there is no slippage - it's reproducible at the same location over and over again ... not a big deal, it just brakes the passer side rear wheel for 1-2 seconds, but the first time it happened I got a little jumpy ...

Scary stuff ...

I have the same thing happening right now on my A-6. At the exact same spot going down this hill with a slight curve in it, the ESP light comes on and I feel the rear right brake grab for a second. The road is dry and smooth. Happens everyday same spot.

Agreed. Glad no one was injured and that a new car is on the way.

That's very scary...I literally just passed 5K. I'll have to pay some extra attention to its operation.

Glad you and your passengers are all ok.

Like others said, Glad you are safe... thats a seriously dangerous situation

Unfortunately, THIS is why I was hesitant to order my C7... I've had 6 Acura's, and NOTHING went wrong with any of them! I rely very heavily on my cars

Its not the a factor of the build, its the quality control with German Cars... Japanese cars go under such strict QC processes... and they test the hell out of everything, before they release it

All the "electronics" in the C7 scare me.... i just feel like any car with that much technology, is bound to have failures.

At least they bought it back from you...

Sorry, but I'm calling BS on this one.

The "electric" in the steering is assist only. It's not going lock it up, you'll just lose the assist. I had a Q7 TDi that I lost my power steering on and I was able to drive 30 miles to the service center with absolutely no assist at all. The Q7 weights about 1500 pounds more and I'm sure is harder to drive with out power steering assist than an A6. The Q7 had a hydraulic line damaged by road debris and all the fluid drained almost immediately.

I just went out in my garage and sat in my A6 and the brake pedal moved fairly easily with the engine completely off. By the way the brakes are vacuum assisted not electric. When the vacuum reservoir loses vacuum you lose assit. Even with no vacuum the brake pedal still moves you just have to push it harder.

Maybe the OP is just extremely weak?

Feel free to call BS all you like. Everyone can have your opinion. Audi however have decided the car is dangerous and are replacing it. I'm hardelly weak I'm a royal marine. I'm here to give you lot a warning that there is a potential issue to look out for.

If this is the reason why you hesitant to order a C7, then you might as well ride a bike. Every car brand has its problem and every brand will have its share of lemons. It’s how the brand deal with the lemon that matters the most. Lexus is one of the most reliable brand in the industry, yet they make cars that is unsafe and cause unintentional acceleration. Years ago, I had a Toyota Avalon that did the same thing as the OP's A6, it would shut off by itself when driving.
I use to be a big Acura fan, but their engineering, quality and customer service have really gone downhill, at the same time, the price went way up. Some people don’t even consider them a luxury brand anymore.
If you think the Japanese have better QC than German, then you have been watching too much car commercials. It’s not the QC, it’s the new technologies that the German use. Japanese car makers tend to use older technology until all the bugs have been work out by somebody else. Then the Japanese would invest into making that old technology more reliable. If you look at the long term reliable reports, you will see that the reliability gap between the best and the worst have been getting smaller and smaller. The industry as a whole is making more reliable cars.

IMHO, I think that this is a sterotype that isn't valid, and is a bit racist.

I've often heard just such comments that, in general, the Japanese are copiers, not innovators.

My 2000 Lexus LS430 pioneered adaptive cruise control and automatic parking.

The LS460 was the first vehile with 8 speed transmissions.

The LS600hL is one of the first cars with LED headlights, not to mention the first luxury hybrid.

I'm guessing that the introduction of new technology is spread around fairly evenly.

HBH

I have 2012 C7 A6 now for a month and as mentioned by other posters all performance cars & are subject to failures given the complexity of engineering behind it. Unfortunately some failures may be more severe & could have not been caught early in development/test process or QC phase, this is due that triggers that cause failure were not known or multiple of them needed and was not thought of. I'm sure Audi will take this incident seriously as they did & engineering will be studying this case. Now we may not know outcome for marekting reasons. But I think the intent of original post is to alert us to watch for any early signs or similar symptoms. Now if one looks at BMW forums, Acura, Honda,MB....etc there will be issues reported varying in severity, I still own BMW 535i 2009 ,while many have suffered from fuel pump failures,my car has not, my point is with all those high performance cars that we chose because we love the way they drive & handle, there will be always a chance something was missed & subject to fail. That is the benefit of sharing cases in this forum & we all hope none of those similar issues ever occur again.

I'm going to assume that since Audi is replacing this car for him this definitely happened. I dont know why Audi would eat a 60k car if nothing was wrong with it. Good to hear that they are approaching it the right way though.

While that gap may be getting smaller, its still there. Acura is plenty a luxury brand. in fact, when comparing apples to apples, Acura is far superior than most in terms of what the car is equipped with, at what price. Honda (Acura) is considered the most reliable brand in the world...

The stereotype that Audi, MB, BMW are 'problematic' has truth to it. All cars are vulnerable to have serious issues, but its a more common problem with German Brand cars, because of the newer technology they use, that isn't always "bug-free". Acura may only use 5spd transmission, and no direct injection or forced induction, but I've put a total of 200k miles on 4 Acura TLs in about 5 years, with ZERO issues, and was never stranded on the side of the road

Please provide the statistics to back up your assertions that German cars have more serious issues than Japanese cars. All I recall reading about dangerous auto issues in 2011 were the problems had by Toyota/Lexus. I don't remember seeing any significant Audi safety issues published since the '80's.

To be fair to Audi they have handled the situation very well as as I would expect of a luxury brand. No arguments from me in terms of customer service, I guess this is the difference between a luxury brand and everyone else.

I think what I am try to say is that the chances of getting a lemon German car is very slim. I am sure if you go into the Acura forums, there will be a few posters with lemon as well. I had 2 Acuras and 2 Honda before, they are very nice cars, reliable and full of options, but they are not as well built as the German cars. I do agree with you about German cars being more vulnerable to have issues because of the newer technology they use. Somebody has to put those new technologies on the road, if everybody plays it safe, then all we will have is a bunch of boring cars on the road with old technology.

I'd like to add my .02 to this discussion. With all the electronics and computers going in the car, I can't believe we can have a 100% perfect production process. Maybe 99.94 but not 100%. The most important thing should be how the car manufacturer handles the situation.
In my case, I did not have as scary experience as the OP did, but my 2010 A6 started showing up all warning lights-from ABS, brakes, parking, all faults. I did not cut off the engine and the car drove fine, but the lights did not go out at all. I gave it to the dealership several times (over 4) for the same issue and they kept the car for over 40-45 days, called all sorts of Audi Technicans from Germany, with little success.
Couple of months back, my service advisor suggested that I get in touch with AOA since these issues are not normal. I wrote a letter detailing the issues and 3 weeks later AOA offered to replace my car,not with a 2011 version but 2012!! I was pleasantly surprised. No arguments, no more explainations....they handled it perfectly.
I even took the opportunity to get all the features (Prestige, Sports) which I did not last time around. Course I did pay up some usage fees since my car had over 30K and for the upgrades.

I've had issues with my bimmer and BMW did take action without any issues. I've had issues with my MB SUV and surprisingly they gave me some pain with some issues. Maybe it was the dealership.

I think Audi just made me a very loyal customer. For a car that clearly had some serious issues, I could not have asked for a better end. So I sincerely think it's most important how the car manufacturer handles the issue, is what we should take into account as well while judging the cars.

I totally agree. When this issue first arose I had a feeling Audi were going to be very funny about the whole thing and I would have a fight on my hands, but no. Audi have handled the situation very well. After concluding the car should be off the road they got to work building me a new one at a higher spec than my original. I tend to believe that it's the level of customer service that sets the brand apart.

What I would also say is I'm glad to hear that nobody else with an A6 or A7 seems to be having this problem, with is good news for Audi and you guys. However if anyone starts developing a curious ticking noise from the instrument cluster get the car checked out. But hopefully this will be a singular case, who knows what happened in the production process to cause these devastating faults.

Are you located in the UK? If not, someone reported the same issue with their car.