Timmay

First time I drove the newer A4 the other day and I felt stupid because I couldn't even figure out how the hell to park the car! Why on earth has Audi decided to fix something that was never broken? I mean I don't see anything wrong with having a standard "P" for Park in its traditional location on an auto gearbox which means usually the top of the gear selector. Me not knowing the latest design attempted to park the car only to find it put it in Reverse instead. Took me a few seconds to realize the Park mode is the button on the actual gear selector itself. I just felt it was a ridiculous design change which I seriously cannot understand the point of. Furthermore, the push start button is located in a location not like any other vehicle I've driven which also took me a little bit to figure out. It's out of plain sight unlike our beloved A3/S3 cars or even my B8 S4 for that matter. Is Audi designing this stuff just for the sake of changing it but not really providing a practical purpose?? The guy in my service department told me he did the same thing as me when first driving the new A4 and felt it was ridiculous as well.

diebartdie

Experience the "newly redesigned" 2018 Audi A4!

superswiss

Yeah, the B9's center console is a bit of a mess. Rather disappointing. I've driven several of them now. The placement of the start/stop button and the MMI controls are ergonomically two steps backwards. The departure from the 4 corner driven UI also doesn't seem an improvement. The electronic shifter is cheaper to make, because there is no more mechanical linkage. That's really all. I have the same issue that I put it in Reverse, when I mean to Park. You don't actually have to put it in Park. It automatically goes to Park if you turn off the engine, but still. A lot of the B9 to me feels like change for the sake of change, or solutions in search of a problem.

Was it Chrysler that needed to recall their cars and reprogram the electronic shifter, because people ended up leaving them in D/R and getting out of the car, only to see it start driving away on their own?

s3burgh

Just wait for the first mom to pull in the garage, slam the selector into park (reverse) and run over some poor little kid. Just like people running themselves over in the grand cherokees. F'en retarded audi.

Timmay

Seriously! There was a fatal flaw in the Jeep Grand Cherokee a couple years ago that killed the actor from Star Trek movies, Anton Yelchin. I think he had thought he put the vehicle in "Park" but it wasn't and proceeded to roll down his driveway and crush him to death. That was a major recall campaign .

excerpt from news article: "Jeep Grand Cherokees were in the process of being recalled because the gear shifters have confused drivers, causing the vehicles to roll away unexpectedly."

When people become "confused" about whether their car is in Park or not, you know that's a problem!!

whitby

I have nearly killed myself a few times in BMW rentals because of this. Totally retarded. I hope this does not make it into the rest of the line.

TheWalrus

Agree 100%! BMW did something similar with their shift levers, and it was needlessly confusing. I drove my brother in law's 535xi wagon and couldn't figure out how to get it in and out of reverse. WTF?!? I've been a licensed driver since 1993, so it's not like I'm new at this.
When I bought my BMW X1, I chose the six cylinder twin turbo over the more fuel efficient four cylinder, partly because it had a traditional shifter. I'd been driving manual cars only since '06, so going automatic at all was annoying.

James
Seattle, WA
2014 BMW X1 xDrive35i Sport Line, loaded
2006 BMW X3 3.0i manual, m-sport, loaded
2006 BMW 330Cic manual, sports package with everything but nav
2006 Mini CooperS convertible, manual, sports package, everything but nav
1998 Audi A4 2.8Quattro Tiptronic, loaded

Damien Clark

It's really not that confusing..? So there's a button for park, anyone with functioning eyeballs would notice that fairly quickly. Plus it's the same for both BMW and Mercedes (although mercedes uses a steering column mounted stalk). I think if you turn the car off with the car in gear it will also put itself in park so it's really not a big deal in my opinion.

Timmay

Yeah but why do it this way? I have functioning eyeballs but had a loaner A4 and I didn't know how the hell to park the car for a few moments. It really shouldn't be that hard and there's nothing wrong with the design that has been around for as long as I've been alive IMHO.

Damien Clark

I'm not saying the mechanical linkage a la s3 is bad just that there are distinct advantages to having electronic shifters which is why they're more or less the industry norm in this car segment. I also feel that there are way more important things to be complaining about than the shifter. Once you've figured out how the shifter works you'll forget you ever had an issue with it.