z_money

Driving yesterday in moderate freeway traffic, around 55mph, and initiated a lane-change. Pre-sense slammed on the brakes (no pre-warning alert) slowing me almost instantly to ~25mph. Apparently it saw the car ahead of me as a problem, although I was fully aware of that car and didn't judge it to be an issue. The problem here is that the car behind me nearly rear-ended me; there were squealing tires and all. Really a disturbing experience.

It's hard to describe how awful it feels to not trust these autonomous systems on the car. I trust myself much more after this experience. To make matters worse, it seems that pre-sense cannot be disabled permanently. After turning the system off, then parking the car, it's enabled again by default.

I'd like to talk to Audi about this, since I literally feel like my car could injure me or my passengers. Anyone know how to reach out to someone at corporate to submit a complaint?

clr1945

If you get an answer, please post it. I have had a couple of very similar experiences - one in which Pre-Sense reacted (I think) to a car in the lane to the left of me. An abrupt speed reduction from 55 to 30! Fortunately the car behind me was several lengths back - but sat on his horn for 15-20 seconds.
There are times when it is very helpful, but there are also times that I have no idea why it's doing what it's doing.

VM

I wonder what triggered it to actually slam the brakes immediately. I've had it trigger a couple of times, and I can only think of one incident where it actually slammed on the brakes - as I was reversing into my parking space at home and someone (on foot I think) was approaching the front-right hand corner of the car. Frankly, that person wasn't really in my path so...

I've had other pre-sense alerts, but usually it beeps at me with the big warning in the middle of the instrument cluster and gives me a second or two to adjust what it thinks to what it is my stupid behaviour... by which point I am usually slowing down anyways. The time it came the closest to being 'wrong' was when it picked up a pedestrian crossing (illegally) at the other side of an intersection I was entering, and I was aware of the pedestrian and could tell that they would be out of the way by the time I got there...

Dave788

traumeri

Do you have your pre-sense warning set to "late"? Perhaps setting the warning to "early" will allow the system to audibly warn first so you can better determine what the system is detecting. I wasn't even sure if presense was working at first so I set the warning to "early" which allows the annoying but helpful "ding" to come on well before the system will apply the brakes. The system is definitely calibrated to hit the brakes at the last possible second!

cuke2u

Sorry but if anyone is following to close to stop then it is their fault, not the car. For an opposite perspective, I have mine set to late and it always pings first and yesterday it saved me and the car as I was 'hooning' around a corner only to find stationary cars immediately in front. The pre-sense kicked in immediately before I reacted, pinged and applied the brakes fully. No fuss, no drama and car, with me intact, would not have it otherwise.
From my investigations if you set the pre-sense to early it is more sensitive and will brake at the slightest obstacle in front. This is why I set it too late, as other owners in the UK have also done as it is a tad too intrusive when set to early. If you wish you can turn it off but as stated at next engine restart it will turn back on to the previous setting again.
A complaint, seriously? Never had an issue with mine..

Versprechen

I agree that best solution is to set Pre-Sense to "Late" in the MMI and you 'll get an occasional warning during maneuvers like those described and a required brake slam when necessary.

A4Driver

After getting too many false warnings when my Pre Sense was set to "early," I changed it to the medium setting.

Yesterday, I got into my car which was parked in a supermarket lot. I started the car, put it in drive, released the parking brake and attempted to drive off. I went about half a foot and the whole car just stopped and shut down. It put itself in Park and applied my parking brake. There was a car coming down my row perpendicular to my car, but it was too far away for Pre Sense to have picked up. Besides, there was no Pre Sense warning on the VC.

I hope this never happens when I'm driving fast.
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Car9

You can try posting at audizine in the customer experience forum.

clr1945

Why would I do that?