belzebutt

Sounds like the NY cops are resigned to the fact that no one can do much about it and you shouldn't count on recovering the car after it's been stolen. You can always use a 3rd party GPS tracker but that's expensive and relies on a monthly plan and cellular connection to phone in. If the car is on a boat or in an area with poor coverage you won't know it. I guess you're just screwed.

The G Man

A car is stolen in the US once every 44 seconds, cops simply do not have the resource to chase after every stolen car, especially if there is no police report. In this case, it would have been a total waste of time because it turned out the wife forgotten where she park. I have forgotten where I park before, but I don't think I have ever called the police and try to activate a tracking system without looking through the whole parking lot. I am sure the airport security would have given her a ride around the parking lot to look for her car. This remind of that Seinfeld episode where they could not find their car in the shopping mall, except on the show, no one panic and they eventually found the car.

belzebutt

Sometimes cars do get stolen. One time I actually had an experience of "damn, I swear I parked the car in this spot" and it was stolen.

superswiss

Remote starting from the factory is mainly a bit of software. There's no extra circuitry required. It uses the data connection that's already there and the owner's phone simply becomes an authorized remote smart key. It's all native and pretty easy to do. An aftermarket remote starter is a whole different story, because it gets tacked on and you often have to sacrifice one of your smart keys. It's a hack vs the integrated solution with factory remote start. As mentioned above, remote start is standard on Mercedes cars for example, including the ability to remotely control the climate control settings from the Mercedes app so you can cool/heat the car. My new C63S has remote start etc., but I can't try it yet as the remote services don't work while I'm driving the car in Europe. I can tell you there a lots of features Audi doesn't offer or charges for, that are standard and free features on competitor models. MB offers all these services and more free of charge for 3 years.

As for the stolen vehicle locator feature, that's a matter of Audi CYA. If somebody were to call in trying to obtain the location of one's car by pretending to be them, Audi could be on the hook if that person then used that information to track down one's car or them and a crime gets committed with that information. Requiring a police report protects Audi when they give out the location of the car. It's clearly stated that this service is for law enforcement use only in case the car is reported stolen.

Generally though, if a car is truly stolen, it's time to call your insurance company, file a claim and start car shopping. Chances it gets recovered in mint conditions are slim. Finding one's parked car doesn't need any of this, though. Apple Maps on my iPhone reliably saves where I parked my car. All provided there's a GPS signal. These things don't work very well, though if you forget on which level you parked in a large structure and neither do the stolen vehicle locator services.

RyanYoung316

So I’m kinda confused what years and models actually have this option to track the vehicle.

bruce_miranda

If you have a valid Audi Connect subscription, then they all do. You see it on the myAudi app.

MRA5SB

As someone mentioned above, its included in the free tier now in the US, no subscription required.

bruce_miranda

And most people who are determined to steal your car are carrying a GSM signal jammer any case, so most trackers become quite useless.

Tesla1856

We have Audi Connect Care (the free/included level).
I tried the Stolen Vehicle Locator in the App (just to see what would happen).

It doesn't seem to be working. It said the car was still parked in garage.

Does it only work for the Primary Key Driver user?

caranddriver

I'm glad I've never had a car stolen before. I've had plenty of things stolen from in the car and off the car (Integra GS-R wheels) though. Start taking a photo of where you parked and make sure that you have the camera accessing GPS location.