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Has anyone got an Audi with adaptive cruise control?
ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 09:29 AM

What colour does the light below come up when you first turn the key? ie in that few seconds when all the self checks are done?




Mine is flashing up red, and the ACC won't engage. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be red or whether that indicates a fault with the system. Helpfully the manual doesn't mention it!

Thanks, Chris

edsco - 3/12/12 at 10:27 AM

I cant afford such luxuries so i wouldn't know! However, you wouldn't be parked in front of a wall when you initially switch the car on are you? Just wondering if the radar has detected that its not safe to engage cruise control. Just a thought.

steve m - 3/12/12 at 10:32 AM

I cant say for your car, but my mondys cruise control is only active above 28mph (assuming ir read the question right!)

Steve

roadrunner - 3/12/12 at 10:36 AM

Get yourself registered on Audi-Sport.net. They will sort you out.

Brad.

ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 10:39 AM

quote:
Originally posted by edscoyou wouldn't be parked in front of a wall when you initially switch the car on are you? Just wondering if the radar has detected that its not safe to engage cruise control.


That is a very good suggestion, I do start it up facing the garage door. Sadly though I think there is a different light for that, and the cruise still won't engage when driving it back from somewhere where I've not been facing a wall, so the underlying problem is still there.

Luckily I had a full inspection done by Audi on the car before I bought it. I wouldn't usually bother, but it was a condition of the finance that I had an independent inspection so I thought I may as well get the 'experts' to give it a once over. They've signed the cruise control off as working, and stated that there were no faults recorded in the diagnostic system. It seems unlikely to me that in <150 miles it's packed up, far more likely that it wasn't working in the first place.

Chris

[Edited on 3/12/2012 by ChrisW]

Ninehigh - 3/12/12 at 11:30 AM

Sounds like a warranty claim to me

ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 11:34 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
Sounds like a warranty claim to me


I'm intending to make it Audi's problem if I can. I reckon it's far more likely that they will fix it as a good will gesture than the warranty paying out for it. It's got full main dealer history after all, and they did carry out the check for me and say everything was fine.

Chris

roadrunner - 3/12/12 at 12:59 PM

What Audi have you got now Chris, is it the replacement for the A6.
I have the A4 2.0tfsi sline quattro and I am well impressed.
Brad.

blakep82 - 3/12/12 at 01:07 PM

quote:
Originally posted by ChrisW
quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
Sounds like a warranty claim to me


I'm intending to make it Audi's problem if I can. I reckon it's far more likely that they will fix it as a good will gesture than the warranty paying out for it. It's got full main dealer history after all, and they did carry out the check for me and say everything was fine.

Chris


i suspect (depending on how much it costs to fix maybe) they'll say the inspection was only to confirm everything worked at the time of inspection. if it breaks as you leave the dealer's gates, then its not their problem.
hopefully they'll sort it though. how old is the car?

ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 02:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by blakep82
i suspect (depending on how much it costs to fix maybe) they'll say the inspection was only to confirm everything worked at the time of inspection. if it breaks as you leave the dealer's gates, then its not their problem.
hopefully they'll sort it though. how old is the car?


It's an 09, the last day of 09 before 59. The original owner got a big discount for having it on an 09 plate, presumably someone had a quota to meet!

It's had one owner, done 22k miles, and has always been serviced by the same main dealer that did the check.

The point I intend to make is that it's either a huge coincidence that it stopped working in the 10 miles between the dealer and the previous owner's house OR they didn't actually check it when they said they did. I know which one is more likely!

Just had a mate at an independent Audi garage put it on his computer. Apparently it has a fault code stored for the heater in the radar unit cover. Another thing on the check list was that they were supposed to read the fault memory, so clearly they didn't do that either.

At the end of the day, I made a purchasing decision based on them giving it a clean bill of health.

Yes, I agree, there is plenty of room for them to argue but I'm going to give it a shot. And if that fails I'll try the 'not fit for purpose' line with Audi UK.

Chris

omega 24 v6 - 3/12/12 at 05:44 PM

Was shown " black box from an RS5 with white line rcognition and brake distance control at work 2 weeks ago. Someone "borrowed" daddys car and pranged it. Daddy was paying and the cost of this little unit of electrickery ( that fits in the palm of yer hand almost) OVER £1500.00
OOOOuuWCH

ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 06:04 PM

Yes, I'm told the complete radar unit is £1000 just for the part and there would likely be another £1000 on top labour to fit as it requires a full front-end alignment of the suspension, steering and the radar itself.

However at the moment it would appear to be a fault with the heater. I got a local independent VAG service place that I know to read the codes for me. Audi say they can replace the heater on it's own, and it looks like they are going to pay for it too. Will find out on Friday when it goes in.

Hopefully then it'll work again and I'll find out whether that light was supposed to be red!!

Chris

Barkalarr - 3/12/12 at 06:05 PM

Have you actually got b@lls big enough to use the AAC and verify it works??

I'm mean't to have this in my car. When I get too close to the car in front before the AAC kicks in I end up sh1tting myself and either overtake or put my foot on the break.

It's a totally pointless piece of tech unless you are in training for a suicide pilot !

ChrisW - 3/12/12 at 06:16 PM

I've driven a different car (same model) with it and thought it was great. On the Audi system you can set the distance from 1 (suicidal) to 5 (people jump in the gap), and how aggressive it is. It was actually the only thing on my 'must have' list, it took me ages to find a car in the colour I wanted that actually had it only to find that it doesn't work!

Chris

roadrunner - 4/12/12 at 12:49 PM

quote:
Originally posted by ChrisW
I've driven a different car (same model) with it and thought it was great. On the Audi system you can set the distance from 1 (suicidal) to 5 (people jump in the gap), and how aggressive it is. It was actually the only thing on my 'must have' list, it took me ages to find a car in the colour I wanted that actually had it only to find that it doesn't work!

Chris

Nearly all Audi drivers have there's set at position 1.

ChrisW - 4/12/12 at 01:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by roadrunner
Nearly all Audi drivers have there's set at position 1.


We'll find out at the weekend! Apparently it defaults back to 3 when you start the car up so the driver would purposely have to turn the distance down.

Chris

ChrisW - 9/12/12 at 10:31 PM

Just to finish this off for anyone in the future...

The car went in to my local Audi on Friday. They replaced the heater in the front of the radar unit, turns out it had a great big crack in it! They deleted the error code and, hey presto, I have working adaptive cruise control. Not really used it much yet other than a quick run down the local bypass but I'm very impressed with it to the point that I don't know how I put up with conventional cruise control!

The other good news was that the dealer that supposedly carried out the check picked up the tab, probably because they didn't want me to start asking what other stuff they hadn't checked. Still, good on them for stepping up and dealing with the problem instead of trying to wriggle out of it.

Cheers, Chris

Confused but excited. - 9/12/12 at 11:10 PM

Good luck with the dealer on the warranty.
My eldest has just aquired a very nice V40. Took it back to sort a simple issue and it came back with well over £900 of damage that they are denying was done by them.

PSpirine - 10/12/12 at 12:15 AM

I actually think it's quite a good system (only have experience with Range Rovers, not Audi), I certainly don't find myself "not trusting it", but I do find it quite annoying since it doesn't do exactly what I'm thinking it should sometimes (when people pull out or pull in).

The New Range with traffic queue assist on the cruise control is brilliant - especially when stuck on the Peripherique in Paris and crawling at 2-10mph. Just set it and it'll stop and go all by itself. You just have to remember to use the brakes when it's turned off!

ChrisW - 10/12/12 at 11:22 AM

quote:
Originally posted by PSpirine
I actually think it's quite a good system (only have experience with Range Rovers, not Audi), I certainly don't find myself "not trusting it"....


I'm also happy to trust it, or rather I have been when I've used it previously. Now it's my own car on the line (I've only ever driven demonstrators previously) I might be a little more cautious, but I doubt it will take me long to get used to it.

I'm an absolute cruise control addict anyway in that I'm constantly using it right down to 30mph and only really switch it off if I'm facing an open road and want to drive. Consequently, taking the step to let the car do the speed adjustment for me doesn't seem that big a leap to me.

I'll point out at this point that I'm referring to the 'daily drive' here. I wouldn't take the 'toy' car out for a drive and use the cruise control, even if it had it!

Chris

coyoteboy - 10/12/12 at 07:44 PM

I get a little worried about the automation paradox with modern cars. People rely more and more heavily on automation, then when they change to a car without they're taken by surprise and when something dramatic happens they get taken by surprise, even when trained not to. I'm no technophobe, but there have been a number of high profile incidents that bring this to the forefront recently, including Air France 447. People trained in exactly how to do a task have that task taken off them by automation, yet when they need to deal with it personally it's such a shock they can't handle it.

Apparently, and this is just annecdotal, but there have been quite a number of accidents where traction control systems have stopped working where people have relied on them, then been way outside their normal envelope when something goes wrong.

This is how I see adaptive cruise. It takes away the immediate apparent need to watch the traffic and adjust slightly all the time. This can only lead to people paying less attention as less and less attention is required to do the driving. When something happens out of the blue, contrary to the idea that you now have less to deal with so you can handle more when you need to, I suspect it'll catch folk out. I'm only glad most of them have the ability to do an emergency stop, it's just a shame they don't also watch the traffic ahead, plan a get out route in case the traffic stops faster than they can physically do so etc.

The only time I've used cruise was in the US on roads that were 50 miles of straight, then a bend, then 50 miles of straigh. Sure enough it was subconsciously easier for me to just keep the cruise on and blast through the lower speed limit areas while resting my right foot, and that's what I did, a few times I was a bit taken by surprise approaching junctions and decided I'd rather just be in control of the car as normal!

bahh humbug!

[Edited on 10/12/12 by coyoteboy]