John Harry

Would appreciate any opinions on buying an A5 Sportback now versus waiting for 2019. Any first-year-of-new-B9-platform problems that would be corrected with a 2019? I'm sure the price will go up, at least a little. I keep a car for a long time so trade-in value of a one year newer car isn't particularly important.

I saw some posts here regarding the S5 but didn't find anything specific to the A5 Sportback.

synergize

Black Optics, period!

Pi-guy

At this point, yeah - I'd wait for a 2019 model. The potential correction of some of the nuisance bugs people are having would be worth it to me at least.

Really a personal preference thing though.

John Harry

Good point.

John Harry

Thanks. Are there any nuisance bugs in particular that you could point out? That was my major concern, given that it's a first year for the platform. I browsed around looking for stuff but got glassy-eyed.

duhg

Since the A5 is built on the tried-and-true A4 platform, there have not been the usual number of first-year bugaboos.

rccoleman

There are a few weird, sporadic bugs, most annoying to me is the top-view camera display reverting back to graphic quite often. Keep in mind that there's supposed to be a software update later this month (most recent estimate) to address that and likely some other issues. A couple of other small things that I've seen -

• If I have the VC set to show the details of a Bluetooth audio source (like a podcast) from my iPhone, when I first start the car, 80% of the time it doesn't display the "now playing" screen with artist/album/track/timeline display and just stays on the one-line description. Switching away and back to the audio source display fixes it, and sometimes it works fine from the start.
• 5-10 times, I've had it completely fail to display the audio info at all in the VC until I turn the car off and back on. It just says "can't load the source" or somesuch. This is much rarer than the first one.

There are also some weird choices in the VC display that may or may not be bugs, but overall there really isn't much wrong with my 2018 model that would make me wait for 2019, especially given the imminent software update. Perhaps the biggest reason to wait would be the implication (but not outright statement) that Google Earth or a similar feature will continue to work in 2019 and newer models beyond Dec 2020, while Audi currently claims that it will go away at that point in 2018 and older models. There's been no official statement about what will actually happen in MY2019, and it only matters if you plan on paying for the expensive Audi Connect plan beyond the 6 month trial period.

hevnsnt

I wouldnt expect any software bugs fixed in the 19, that don't get down patched in the 18s. My guess for the 2019s will be different paint options, and maybe a different speaker setup.

rocko76

If Google Earth is important to you, definitely wait. It will not work on the 2018's past Dec 2020.

John Harry

duhg, rccoleman, hevnsnt, rocko76: Thanks for the comments - they are helpful.