DrMarlene

I have driven/purchased Mercedes, BMW's and Jaguars...this my first Audi [fully loaded A3plus]...needing a small car at the time, I like the style of this Audi with the rounded front. To my dismay, there is a design defect ON THIS MODEL .due to that rounded front end. It seems to catch the snow and IMMEDIATELY FORM A SOLID SHEET OF ICE on the license plate and of course blocking the sensors. This happens at any speed, 25mph and up...and the car reacts in a frightening manner. It jolts, inside sounds, pictured on the camera This happened the only 2 times I had driven it when it started to snow, in the year I had it. The first was the 2nd week I had it and brought it back..and again, 1 years later and brought it back. A DESIGN defect for sure!. I come from a car industry family, driving for 50 years and never had this happen in any of the many luxury top line vehicles I have owned before. Perhaps this is because it is the bottom of the line, costing me $47,000 for fully loaded, pot hole insurance, and service contract. A nightmare in the snow...I even asked if they could in any way disconnect the front end sensors and they said NO..I am only hoping that people don't die with this defect. I am an experienced driver and know my cars...but there are many who are not and this can create severe accidents

NABS4

This is the Q7 forum, not the A3 forum. Try there for more sympathy.

Force-1

Wires

All Audi's have the same rounded front end, so perhaps you "don't really know your cars" like you say. And as others have said, perhaps trying to get sympathy on the A3 forum might work for you (but this still wreaks of buyers remorse, and not a "defect". Sounds like you were forced into a "bottom of the line POS A3 -- interpolating from your comments above). The reason the dealer isn't doing anything is because they are rolling their eyes in disbelief of your complaint.

Throwing in comments of "I come from a car industry family" isn't going to net you any points either, since nothing you have said makes any sense, nor does it align with the operation of Audi's driver assistance functionality. I'm surprised that none of the vehicles you have driven 50 years ago didn't suffer from any of these issues. Oh yeh, that's right back when cars didn't have seatbelts and could barely make it to highway speeds! Where is the eye rolling emoticon when you need it?

KevinGary

Brimstone

The first level of presense is only audible (and visual in VC/HUD) to alert the driver you can turn this off (I think) or adjust the sensitivity in the MMI, the 2nd level will brake for you, but its probably completely unsafe in wintry conditions or with bad tires as its late and brakes really hard. You don't want to experience this, although its better than hitting w/e might be there (although I've had 1 or 2 false positive experiences), In certain conditions I'm sure the 2 can easily be conflated by the driver since they happen so quickly but I'm pretty sure there's 2 separate systems.