WildBTK

Hello,

Just curious to know if others cannot close their rear hatch with the remote control? The owners manual, page 37, states you can close it by double-clicking or press-holding the hatch icon on the remote and the hatch will close. I can open the hatch remotely, but cannot close it remotely using either the double-click or press-hold method.

Thanks!

speedyman

That's odd, for me double-clicking opens de hatch and press-hold for 2 or 3 seconds makes it close the hatch while making a beeping sound.
You may need the "Advanced key with electric hands-free boot opening system" (keyless entry) option for it to work.

Seems like if you can't open the hatch by waving/kicking your foot under the rear bumper, closing the hatch with the remote won't work either for some reason.

fideba

I just tested with an European model with advanced key option: no way of closing the lid with the remote

dupsatou

This works but you have to be standing so close its pretty much pointless in my opinion. You can also close it from the button on the driver's door. Car must be on and in park for the button in the door to work. Just lift it and hold and the hatch will close. The remote you have to be standing so close that you might as well just press the button.

Now the 'kick to open/close' function is another thing I've found to be annoying. It NEVER works when I want it to and always activates trying to close on me while I'm getting things out or loading things in. I've pretty much decided its the most useless feature so far on this car.

WildBTK

Definitely seems like yet another software bug. The QC on the software in the eTron is showing to be very poor; I have never seen another car with so many obvious bugs in its software.

I already have an appointment to see my dealer later this month and will add this to the list of items for them to look at. Fortunately, the owner's manual explicitly says it should have this feature, so it will be tougher for them to give me the run-around.

Correction: it will close via the remote if you are about 10-feet or less away from the vehicle. Utterly useless. I can open it from 50 feet away, I should be able to close it from the same distance I can open it from.

dupsatou

Yup. Pretty much. I'm sure they consider it a safety feature but c'mon. They could just make it beep a few seconds before it starts moving just like the kick to close feature does so you can get out of the way or stop it.

WildBTK

I don't even see how it can be a safety feature. The door already has resistance-sensing hardware, so it won't crush someone in the way. Here's a scenario: you open the rear hatch accidentally or on purpose from some distance and change you mind, now you have to walk up to the vehicle to close it.

Everyone talks about how good German car engineering is. I disagree. It's generally overthought, made overly complex or dumbed-down to point of being useless. Another example: why do you have to hold the rear hatch button or the seat memory buttons until they are done with closing the hatch or moving the seat? You should just press it and be done. All of these little annoyances and shortcomings are adding up to a disappointing experience with the eTron for me.

dupsatou

I generally agree with your post but wanted to mention in both my parents Acura and my previous Mazda CX-9 the hatch/seat buttons worked exactly the same. I always thought that was weird then too but it's the same - hold them down till they're done.

I will say that while I've noticed some minor glitches here and there none of it hasn't added up enough for me to be disappointed. I think the most annoying thing is the homelink losing its pairing with my garage door (another thread...) but I recently connected with my dealer on that and they've offered a possible fix that we're waiting to see if it'll do it. Besides that though, overall, I actually very much like the e-tron for what it is. I insisted on a 100% fully electric vehicle and needed something that was more of a bigger vehicle. Of the choices out there I think this was the best one and I don't regret that one bit. If I wasn't limiting myself to fully electric I probably could've gotten something less quirky but I'm okay with it. I haven't had to pull in to a gas station in a couple months and to me that's worth it. That said, there is definitely room for improvement and I'm sure we'll see Audi improve it in the future years. The unfortunate price we pay to be early adopters I guess.

WildBTK

I test drove a CX-9, among others, before looking at the eTron. I even took the CX-9 for an overnight test drive. I didn't think to test the seat/hatch buttons working only while pressing the buttons on that vehicle, but in Subaru, Toyota, Lexus, Kia, Hyundai and Jeep vehicles I have had, they all worked intuitively: you press the buttons once and it does its thing.

In all fairness, the eTron does have upsides: the ride is phenomenal, the smoothness and quietness are incredible and the drivetrain is lots of fun (even though it is a bit on the slow side for an EV). Those are all big things in my book, so I am trying really hard to take the bad with the good here and strike a balance, but it's hard when so many little things show their face regularly.

dreadlocks

If you press the memory seat recall before you get in, while the door is open you just have to tap it and it'll go all the way to position.. if the door is closed, it assumes someone is in the seat and makes you hold it down so you could stop it quickly if it crushed yeh.

If my wife were to hit my button accidently while driving, she'd quickly loose the ability to reach the brake pedal.. if I hit it while driving, my knees would get shoved into the dashboard.. so holding it is like a deadman switch.