rjabend

Well I have had my Q8 back for a week & 2 days now. Audi indicates they calibrated the firmware settings and physically aligned the DAS sensors. They also performed wheel alignments. The lane centering now performs reasonably well with ping pong much reduced. Since the week long service event, I have had no severe swerves off the road, just a few minor blips that the car self corrected. Last night I did lose adaptive cruise control with a message that said the function was unavailable and to check the owner's manual. That failure lasted until mid-morning today and then it started working again. I checked the sensors and found no dirt or other obstructions and the car recorded no internal faults . . . . . has anyone else seen that problem? I am left wondering why those calibrations and alignments were not performed at the factory. I can provide the repair order which calls out a little more detail on the steps taken if anyone is interested. I hope this information is a help to others experiencing similar problems.

Buddy girl

rjabend

It depends. Are you having trouble with it?

Buddy girl

rjabend

Adaptive Cruise is an element within the suite of driver assistance functions. The dealer is supposed to spend time going over these with you. I recommend making an appointment and asking them to do that; then go through the fairly complex menu hierarchy in the car with necessary references to the manual. Gaining a complete understanding of the system is not easy; it will take a while.

PS - I would try to find someone at the dealer that understands the systems. Unfortunately, few do.

markcincinnati

Not only did our dealer (in two sessions) go over the driver assistance features, he took us out in traffic and showed my wife ACC and lane keeping. We did not get a demo of traffic jam assist, but in fairness to our sales rep, I have a 2018 S4 with the feature and I told the rep "never mind." The rep -- on the cars equipped with driver assistance -- will (and should) spend about two hours to go over the features and settings even in rather modestly configured cars (not just the Q8).

There are several "automatic" (responsive or reactive) braking features. For example (and I am making some assumptions regarding your level of equipment -- and that is because virtually all of the cars at our dealership come with driver assistance even if it is an optional feature), let's say you are backing out of a parking space at your local grocery store or Costco on a busy day (they all are, aren't they?), sensors in the rear may "see" a car coming down the aisle in the parking lot that you can't see. The systems in the Q8 will first inform you (visually on the screen) that you should NOT back out. If you ignore the visual cue, the Audi's system will "punch" the brake jolting you and hopefully making you stop on your own
accord. If you ignore this, the Audi will go ahead and clamp on the brakes as if you had applied them yourself.

Other auto-braking features include "barrier braking." You can drive forward (without ACC) -- let's say in heavy traffic -- and if you look away (for whatever reason) and your car continues moving forward toward the rear bumper of the car that has just slammed on the brakes in front of you the Audi will again give you a warning (on the dash screen directly in front of the driver) and if you do nothing the car will bring the car to a full stop (usually a few inches from the rear bumper of the car in front of you). Of course, ACC can accelerate and brake, and ACC has full stop and start capabilities -- the problem is that the current version of ACC has been hobbled (in the US at least) so that it will bring your Audi to a full stop and if the car in front of you resumes forward movement within a few seconds, ACC will also resume acceleration. However, the auto-resume function only works within an almost useless period of time (3-ish seconds). Another auto-braking function is pretty much standard fare in perhaps the majority of cars -- hill hold. In this auto-braking function your Audi will hold your car in place after you come to a full stop on a hill (and in this example, I'm assuming you do not have ACC engaged) and the car will hold the brakes even if you release the brake pedal.

Another auto-braking feature is "torque management" -- this one is not tricky but you need to understand this is not exactly the "torque vectoring" feature that goes hand-in-hand with the sport-differential. As you may know, the Q8 is nose heavy, this heaviness can contribute to the vehicle's tendency to under-steer. Engineers can and do work to counteract understeer, but most cars (Audi is no exception) do come standard with at least a touch of understeer because most drivers feel understeer is a more benign "feature" than oversteer. So what your new Q8 does to improve its handling is to use the brakes to counter its inherent understeer thusly: When entering a sharp left turn at or above the speed at which the car starts to understeer, sensors tell the ESP system to apply the left-front brake which tends to make the Audi turn left more sharply (reducing understeer is the effect). On S-cars, this brake-based torque management works on both the front and rear wheels. Indeed, this technique was deemed so effective that the RS3 didn't even offer the sport differential.

I may not have outlined every circumstance in which your Q8 can and/or will apply the brakes, but I am confident I have covered at least the most common and likely ways your Audi can apply its brakes automatically.

Buddy girl

rjabend

I drive with it on all the time.

jrjunior31

rjabend

I don't see any problem w/cruise control out-of-the-gate as long as you don't travel at the same speed for a long time; e.g. in traffic. If you use it on a freeway for a long time, make sure you vary the speed significantly. The break-in period is 1000 miles and discussed on page 98 of the manual.