juicebox098

Yes - the auto start/stop in loaner Mercedes vehicles I've had in the past was very noticeable. The A5 auto start/stop is like a whisper compared to my Mercedes experience.

kentr

Interesting. My Audi does NOT turn off before I'm at a complete stop. In fact, the system apparently pays attention to how you are driving and "senses" you are creeping along in traffic. When it senses that repetitive start/stop behavior, it will not turn off the motor for awhile (15 seconds or so? Never actually timed it). I personally think that's kind of smart - if it were consistent.

Therein lies the problem, the overall, performance of the system is POOR at best. It's way too inconsistent. In my car, I can (and hove numerous times) driven 5 or so miles and it works at EVERY SINGLE stop. When I get to my destination, exit the car and come back 20 minutes later, it FAILS to activate at every single stop and that is NOT a function of insufficient pressure on the brake pedal. I firmly believe there is some sort of "heat soak" issues at play after parking the car - engine off, no airflow in or around engine and the residual heat is warming "something" up under the hood and "tricking" it into thinking the car needs to do it's very best to conserve battery power (perhaps it's some sort of "anticipatory" programming in case you MAY be turning on the AC?

By comparison, my wife's 2017 Ford Escape works like a charm and is almost completely unnoticeable - when I test drove the thing I had to glance at the tach to confirm it was actually off at a stop.

I have raised the issue in the past with the dealer and the best I could get (at least so far) is, "that's the way the system is designed and Audi won't be changing it." They also handed me a three-page TSB (2045316/2 released August 16, 2017) that rambles on explaining a myriad of reason why it won't turn off and the "Production Solution" section states "Not applicable" which, at least to me, reinforces they either can't, don't know how or won't take action to stabilize that platform.

Just my two cents

The G Man

Auto start has come in long way, the earlier versions were very rough and intrusive, almost every generation has improved since. My old Mercedes CLS550 was very smooth at start stop, I believe Mercedes was the first to use a technology that detects the cylinder that is closest to the spark plug and fires that spark plug first to make the start up smoother, The *** on my S5 is about as smooth as the CLS550, both are non-intrusive in my opinion. For those who thinks the S5's *** is intrusive, they should drive a car with the earlier ***, then they will realize what intrusive is.

AgMaple

My only issue with *** is that it engages every time as I come to a stop in my garage. Several times I exited the car, then realized I hadn't turned it off. It took some self-training, but I don't forget anymore (I use the Start/Stop button instead of the P button to put the car in PARK).

yamsta

I've driven a few cars with ***: a rental E200 in Europe last year, a rental Jeep Cherokee (2018), a rental C300 4Matic (2018), and my 2018 S5. Out of those 4 cars I would say the most "jerky" is the S5 as it turns off the engine just before the car comes to a stop accentuating the brakes. The smoothest was the European E200--it was completely seamless and I really did not mind having it on. The Jeep and C300 fall in between. I think the *** in the S5 is just a bit too aggressive. I believe this has to do with the programming--the car "thinks" it's completely stopped when it really isn't just quite stopped yet. This can be noticed when pressing the park button (P) right before coming to a complete stop--the car will engage P and halt the car. Not sure why it's like this and but I would think it's an easy fix.

kentr

Just a word of advice. Throwing it into park while moving can yield some dramatic and unintended results. The "Park" mode is also an "emergency brake" that will activate in the event you lose braking power. I actually tested this on a dirt parking lot and it definitely applies the brakes rather firmly - if you are doing this in traffic, you might, just possible end up getting rear ended.

The G Man

Since my S5 does not have brake hold, sometimes I use my parking brake when at red light so I can take my foot off the brakes, This worked fine the first few month of ownership. Yesterday, I applied the parking brake at a red light, I start to step on the gas as the light turn green, the car rev, but no movement, I step on the gas some more, now I am chirping my tires, then I realize the parking brakes are still on. Does anybody know what can cause the parking brake not to auto release?

yamsta

Yes, correct, would not try this in traffic...or in general

heisnuts

Your seat belt has to be on for the parking brake to release. Maybe you did not have the seat belt buckled?

Nikon1