johno10661

All I can say is, wow, they've obviously outsourced customer service...



Dear Mr. Onsyko:

Thank you for contacting Audi of America. We regret to learn of the paint concern that you are experiencing with your 2013 Audi S8. As a valued member of the Audi family, it is our pleasure to assist you.

Pleased be assured that Audi of America is more than happy to research your concerns, in an effort to retain you as a satisfied Audi owner. As such, we will be contacting you within two business days to discuss your concerns further. Your patience is sincerely appreciated at this time.

If you require assistance prior to us contacting you, please do not hesitate to contact us a the Audi Customer Experience Center at (877) 615-2834. We are available Monday - Sunday, 8am to 11pm Eastern Time.

We look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,


Chelsea Walker
Audi Customer Advocate

aTOMic

Ha, I actually LOLed!

At least you got their attention!

aTOMic

Gentlemen, please keep it civil! There's no need to suggest such radical and demented solutions!!

BigBoy11

Some questions I have is who is your selling/servicing dealer and what have they said and/or done so far to address your car's issues? Why have there been no posts on this or any other Audi form about such issues? And lastly, I have read dozens of reviews, road tests, technology evaluations, etc. in magazines, auto enthusiast sites, blogs et al and none of them have mentioned any such issues even from the most critical publications. Why not?

It does sound as if your S8 is indeed a "lemon" at least with respect to electronics and software applications. Better lawyer up, contact your state's Attorney General's office and department of Consumer Affairs! Good luck and keep us posted.

johno10661

I purchased the car for reasons that I'm finding most do not - Audi's next generation systems. As for the reviews and road tests - I doubt any of them would get intimate enough with the vehicle to link their iPhone to it, sync contacts, etc. I cannot emphasize enough - mechanically, it is a work of art. Pressing down on the accelerator in sport mode is virtually indescribable.

I cannot tell you how many time's I've been told to "enjoy the vehicle for what it is". I have to scratch my head at that. It's really awkward to get in the vehicle with a business associate and need to plug in an address in nav. "Yeah, it's a great car but now we have to talk for the next few minutes while it boots because I don't know which way to turn out of here to get to our next stop..."

I wouldn't get the state involved, I'd probably just drop the car of at the dealer and tell them to call me when the car boots in less than a minute

4ringking

From my Audi A8 experience, sounds like you need a software update, and if that does not work, a module would be needed. If these item do not fix you problem, your expectations may exceed the vehicles capabilities. The Audi service dept. will only address the issue if it can be verified your concern.
Good luck, solving the issue.

BigBoy11

Here is a link to CNET for their review of the S7 which has the same MMI and electronics as the S8.
http://reviews.cnet.com/sedan/2013-a...5636059-2.html CNET has much more of an emphasis on technology than performance in their reviews.

BigBoy11

BTW, you may have to go back to previous to get the first page of the review. Sorry.

wilfred2k5

No. I'm also someone for whom the PRIMARY reason for purchase is the technology. I feel your pain, having experienced some of the same issues, as well as having been a software engineer for many years.

Audi does not do as good a job as I would like, but some of the problems you're seeing can be easily remedied.

#1 Be sure you're running 0566 firmware or later.
#2 A number of your issues seem phone related. I believe your phone is being used as a "guest" phone. Completely clear your iPhone of bonded devices. Use MMI to completely wipe the Bluetooth memory. Reset MMI with the three-finger salute. Only then should you plug your phone into AMI, and bond your phone for telephone purposes only. Let it suck in your contacts (being sure that you have no more than 2000 on your phone), and confirm that they should be saved into MMI. In the morning or after an MMI reset, my nav targets are available in approximately 1 minute.
#3 As for favorites being linked to the phone, you can save destinations to your MyAudi account that can always be accessed. Contacts tied to addresses on a given phone are NOT available without the phone. This is for privacy reasons. How difficult would it be for you to simply send the relevant contacts to your wife? Surely those contacts are useful to her at times when she isn't in the car. As a software guy, you should know how to send her contacts via Messages. That's not a bug; that's a feature, and a heavily-requested one.
#4 If MMI is rebooting on you during the day, you have a problem module OR old MMI firmware OR your AMI cable is not attached completely to your phone. I had this problem until I noticed that the cable was not firmly locking to my 30-pin connector. I purchased a "red grommet" AMI cable from someone on this board. Now, I only see the issue when my iPhone locks up (generally due to the slow T-Mobile 3G service after I select a song from the iTunes cloud). Even that doesn't happen very often.
#5 The high-beam issue is a race condition. Think about how you make the problem happen. Is it a bug? Yes. Why doesn't it generate more complaints? Because most people just leave it in AUTO and never touch it again...I constantly tell people the same thing about the climate controls. Unless you're ill and need a bit more warmth temporarily, you should pretend the controls don't even exist. Ditto with the headlights. For every Audi I've ever owned, AUTO goes on the first time I drive and never goes off again unless it's done by the service department.
#6 I have tried EVERY audio source (AM/FM/Sirius/DVD/SD1/SD2/Jukebox/Bluetooth/Telephone/AMI-iPhone/Wi-Fi Internet Radio) with the volume set to 18 or higher, and every time I stop the car (everything off and MMI closed), opened the door, waited a minute, closed the door, started the car, the volume level came back to 4. I've never known the volume to be stuck. The steering wheel volume control takes a few seconds to be functional, but the MMI volume control on the center dash works immediately for me.
#7 The A8 does not "hijack" your call. This behavior can be altered from your iPhone. On my iPhones, if I start the car while I'm on a call, Bluetooth takes over. Tapping SOURCES on my phone lets me easiliy change it back to speaker/iPhone/my headset. This is wonderful since I can walk from the office with my Bluetooth headset on, get in the car and have it take over for me. If you look at your iPhone, it displays the SOURCES menu for a few seconds when your car becomes alive. Check the Apple forum; there's a way to make it not change from the iPhone itself if you're using iOS 5.x or earlier. Alternately, you can remove the MMI telephone bond while leaving the audio bond.

Think carefully about this BECAUSE it's no longer legal to operate (not even drive, just operate) a car while using a phone. In some states (e.g. California), there's a $169 fine if you TOUCH your phone for any reason. You can't use it as a NAV, you can't look up a contact, you can't tap to ignore a call, even if you're at a traffic signal, while the ignition is on.

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Well, I've reached by typing limit for the week. I hope this helps. Audi's MMI is nowhere near perfect, but it's somewhat like when, as a longtime Windows internals guy, I decided to try a Mac. I was miserable for about 8 months, trying to work the same way I always did but with the different UI. "I can't find a decent defragger for this thing!" and "It's impossible to manage where your documents are in the file system!"

Eventually, I figured out that most of the Windows overhead is simply unnecessary and that I could instantly find documents and e-mail I hadn't touched in years using Spotlight. Now, I find Windows absolutely barbaric. I often say "So here I am digging for my file at the command prompt, LIKE AN ANIMAL!!!"

It has been similar with my A8L. "I can't refresh my podcast list!" (It just happens). "Once you've locked the trunk, you have to open the door to get at the trunk release." (Because waving your foot under the rear bumper opens the trunk).

I suggest spending an evening in the garage with the MMI manual and learning all the little things they got right.

One more thing: If you've ever done deployment on mission critical software, you know that, even if you have a simple fix for something, it may take several months before your users see that fix. End users will never see "daily builds" of firmware for a vehicle that (a) can literally explode, (b) can maim or even kill innocent bystanders if it malfunctions, (c) can bankrupt the company even if there's a rumor of the car being unsafe (e.g. the whole 60 Minutes unintended acceleration scam that almost bankrupted Audi). Firmware is called "firmware" because it isn't supposed to change much. Try writing software for a nuclear control center, an X-ray machine or a pace maker. "Oops I forgot a semicolon" is not acceptable. The timeline for a full revision of the MMI firmware is 2 years, from what I understand, and involves a great deal of testing on real cars, in all kinds of circumstances (temperatures, malfunctions, multiple and cascade failures). They can't risk having a change to the reboot process causing a race condition with the ECU that jams the CAN bus and stops the ABS from functioning. It's unlikely we'll ever see firmware updates more frequently than once every 12-18 months.

Enjoy your S8. I'll be getting the 2016 model with all the bugs you mentioned resolved. ;-)

aTOMic

Wilfred, that's as good an explanation for the importance of stability in automotive software as I've heard. Audi should hire you. It's too bad a company of Audi's size (never mind VWAG's size) has lost touch with its customers, who shell out for the second biggest investment they'll make in their lives - let alone someone who buys their halo product (R8) and then another brand new $100,000+ product from them.

Also, I love your characterizing Windows as barbaric! "LIKE AN ANIMAL!" LOL! (agreed!)

To Johno, I can sure understand your frustration, but you obviously know just how to move on this problem. Between AW and AOA, it'll be fixed. I'm sure someone at VWAG knows how to address your problems; it's a matter of connecting with them. Since they now know about your PAINT PROBLEM I'm sure it'll be fixed in no time!