Please get everyone you know who is experiencing this problem to report it to Audi by registered return receipt mail, your dealer service my email and the NTSB.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why Audi would not want to improve the user experience they talk about so often.

Please get this going and make it in a what that proves Audi got it. They are in denial until we can hold them accountable.

You're talking about a company that faked its emissions data for years - Audi isn't exactly a corporation that cares about its customers.

True, this forum needs a "like" button.

I picked up my gorgeous Q8 last week and came here hoping for an answer. This is not encouraging to say the least. I'll jump on the bandwagon and log my complaint with the dealer. I have about 150 miles on it.

So I too picked mine up last weekend and took it for a long drive to start the break in process. During this time, I was trying to see if I would encounter this throttle lag. So during this time I had the car in Comfort and had Auto S/S on. Now I don't know maybe if it's because of the way I drive, but I didn't seem to encounter the lag (well not yet at least). So normally before I am about to make my move (turning at intersection, or moving up in traffic) I release my foot off the break a few seconds before I'm actually about to move, a preparation move if you will. During the time between my foot is released off the break and I'm about to move the engine is already re-engaged and I'm moving no problem.

Now, during this little road trip, there were two instances where I can say I was concerned, and this was during an inclined stop. When I was about to move from a stop and I took my foot off the break I did notice that I would start rolling backwards. It's kinda scary when you're trying to move your foot from the break and gas (albeit the distance is not that far, but when this happens it feels like it's far). This is scary just because you're not sure how far of a distance you are to the car behind you and if you do roll back, there's a possibility to have an accident.

This is just my 2 cents for now. When I get to take it on more drives, I'll continue to be mindful of the throttle lag issue and see if I ever encounter it.

I have not encountered the 3 second lag of no power. What I am seeing is a laggy acceleration until the turbo kicks in. I attribute that to a 3 liter engine trying to push a 5000 pound vehicle at low RPM. Audi may also be tuning the transmission to be aggressive to keep low RPMs. I have a slightly similar situation on my Mazda CX-5. It takes a little to get the thing to figure out it is time to go. So for me it isn't anything I haven't seen before. But if you are seeing literally zero movement from the engine for 3 seconds. That needs to be reported to the dealership.

Where I saw the throttle lag was driving with the auto start stop off at 45-50 mph, then taking your food off the gas, and coating to a red light, when that light turned green and I had coasted down to about 15-20 mph and went back on the gas because the light turned green without coming to a full stop I had horrible 2-3 second lag. In that exact scenario my instead of light, I was making a left and that was worse because it could have ended badly. (on a test drive yet.)

The issue is not as major if you shut the start stop feature and also even better in dynamic with the auto start stop off.

I believe this issue is cause by the start stop system keeping the tranny in the highest gear possible until the driver calls for acceleration. The Q8 says OK crap-we are not stopping we are going, better down shift. The default programming is for may MPG, but that is not my default programing and it is frustrating, If I pull the trigger I will be a Auto S/S off guy every time. You can check the gear by moving the gear selector into manual to confirm this above and see that you are in 5th or higher when the lag hits when you should be in 2nd or maybe 3rd.

I spoke to Audi of American and several dealer service managers and everyone is aware, they nod, I just did not get the feeling they are going to do anything about it which is why I posted to make a stink at the dealer and at AOA because I want to buy this car !

This is a major issue to me at least

I'm here getting the dirt on the Q8 as part of my due diligence. This is the most disturbing problem I've read about up to this point (if there are worse, I'd like to know about them). While reading another thread, I happened to come across a potential solution to keeping the start/stop disabled I thought some might find helpful. I am in no way associated with this product nor have I ever used it. I also don't know what the 4M designation after the Q8 is in the applications list.

Coding dongle disable start / stop for VW, Seat, Skoda, Audi

This would also seem to imply this is programmable unless the dongle needs to stay installed for this feature to be enabled.

Cheers!

Cant disable with OBDeleven, not sure about other software tools...

This is the most annoying thing about my Q8. I live in a dense suburban area with a lot of stop signs and traffic lights. Coming from a diesel vehicle with 400lb-ft of low-end torque, I knew that going down was going to feel different. However, I feel like the lagging acceleration with the start/stop feature on has caused me to miss a protected left light or two. It can be so bad that I worry that the people behind me are going to blow their horn. It can be scary when trying to cut through cross traffic.