I have seen a couple posts in the past about this issue, but wanted to share my experience. After eating at a restaurant, we placed my child's styrofoam milk cup in the front cupholder. When we got home, the cup was empty and there was very little milk found that we could clean up. A few days later, however, there was a terrible smell in the car that I figured out had to be the milk. You could see some milk in the carpets on either side of the center console. I cleaned this up with carpet shampoo, vacuuming, scrubbing ,etc.. The carpets looked great, but the smell had not gone. I decided to bring the car in to the dealer. They ended up having to remove the seats and entire console and detailed the area. Unfortunately, this did not remove the smell. The final decision was made to change the carpet. The labor costs are $980 and the carpet itself costs $1,000. Nearly two weeks later, several calls to Audi customer care, multiple conversations with the dealer staff and manager, I still don't have my car back and am expected to pay for this whole thing. The dealer is helping as much as they can, but it is still going to cost a lot of money.

This was obviously the result of a very poorly designed cupholder. Neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever had a problem putting a styrofoam cup in a cupholder before. This was a very expensive way to find out that you cannot put them in the A7. Although they acknowledge I didn't do anything wrong and that the "fingers" that hold the cups are very stiff, Audi still refuses to accept responsibility for this disaster.

If anyone else has had this problem before, you need to formally complain to Audi about it. What seems like just an annoying oversight can turn into $1000's in repair costs. Most importantly, I truly hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.

 

That is the one thing I am very careful with. After trying to fit a Sam's Club foam cup into the holder, I immediately realized this is not going to work. Hope your smell finally goes away, but I have a feeling you are going to be on the hook for the cost. Poorly designed indeed.

 

The poor design of the front cup holders was one of several things of which I've indicated my strong disappointment in the Audi and J.D.Powers surveys. I sympathize for your situation. I keep a thin wall foam cup in my door pocket. When I have beverages in paper or foam cups, I insert the empty thin wall foam cup in the cup holder first, and then insert and remove just the cup containing the beverage. So far, that second cup has done a great job of preventing the cup holder springs from damaging any paper or foam cups.

 

When I removed the rubber inserts, I discovered that there was a small square hole in the bottom of the cup holders open to the underworld of the console. I have no idea why they are there but I cut some small pieces of duct tape to cover the holes underneath the rubber inserts. Now if I get a small leak in a cup, it will just collect in the cup holder and not go anywhere else. Of course, this won't help with a major spill or full cup failure as the OP found out the hard way.

I will not use stryofoam cups in any case, just wax paper cups which, if carefully inserted just over half way in, are more durable than styro and won't rupture. Not sure about the A7/S7 but in the A6, the right hand cup holder is marginally larger than the one on the left side. Inexplicably, for many years, Audi engineers have had a hard time coming up with useful cup holders. My last three Audis also had cup holders of one poor design or another.

 

You can get the large plastic soda cups from fast food places and cut off the bottoms, to push those claws back.

 

I was going to do this myself. Looks like you found the perfect cups.

 

Why are you guys so damn thirsty? I do my drinking sans automobile.

 

That is a good idea to cover that up hole up. I think that is another requirement of a cupholder...to self contain any leaks. I'll do that when I get home. To clarify, I would never choose a styrofoam cup over another material, but sometimes you're stuck with what the restaurants give you. I actually very rarely put cups in there unless it's from a drive thru or to go cup.

Not super excited about putting another cup in there to hold back the springs, but that is a interesting and clever way to do that, newmoon!

Final damage was around $2,100. Instead of having something really cool for 2 grand, I'm now back to where I was before we decided to eat at a Mexican restaurant . I really hate those types of expenses!

 

I was just thinking about the reaction an Audi engineer would have seeing your pictures. My hope is that they would feel very foolish. Seriously, look at the lengths people go through to avoid having a problem. An interesting workaround, but one that should never be needed.

 

That turned out to be one very expensive burrito.