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If you enjoy banging your head against a brick wall you could write to Audi UK Head Office.

Nice one Mark, also see you are from Newcastle 🙂

I'll call them on Monday morning and let you'd group know what they said. Almost certainty it'll be... We cannot diagnose over the phone, please bring it in for a diagnostic check at £125 or something, but you never know! Just editing my post. I'm an IT Engineer by trade and I just thought... I wonder what firmware all our radios have.. I'll look tomorrow and drop something here on how to check for those that don't know

Yep welcome to the club Amy 😅 So everyone has a Audi that is in the years ranging from 2014 - 2018?

You'll need the wiring harness for the buttons. My advice would be to take all the parts from donor/breaker car.

It’s very strange and I don’t think we are the only 2 who’ve been affected if it’s a radio transmission issue

Good Afternoon Mark and RSW, Thank you for the update and sharing your eloquent communication. I had been awaiting a response from my local dealership prior to contacting Andrew Doyle, in an effort to give them an opportunity to resolve this matter in a fair, reasonable and professional manner. The anticipated call came in half an hour ago, confirming Andrew Doyle is the only option remaining. The dealership insist there was no outstanding recall on my car at the time of sale and insist there has been no recall on my vehicle for this fault. The mysterious 7 year warranty that has appeared to cover the cost of repair, despite my vehicle allegedly being subject to no recall and being out of standard warranty, could not be explained. The starter generator recall on the government website advises the number of affected vehicles to be circa. 50,000 vehicles. If the dealerships statement is correct, it means the actual number of vehicles affected is in reality significantly higher, mine being additional to the quoted number. The dealership had no interest in responding to my comment that the vehicle was not fit for purpose. I have now fully exhausted all avenues, so it is my intention to draft a letter to Andrew Doyle this evening. Mr Doyle's executive office response, is it seems, as non-commital and disappointing as ever. I will endeavour to follow your example in hitting hard, in the hope that the reality starts to dawn on Audi UK that this is a BIG problem which will not go away. We are agreed, this is about safety and not money. If Audi will not take the necessary action and issue the requested assurances that design changes have been made, to restore my confidence in my car, then a buy back will unfortunately be the only acceptable resolution. I will let you know when I have submitted my email and more importantly when a response is received. Thank you again for your willingness to work together to drive this forward to what I hope will be a just conclusion.

I now have a reply from Audi UK Executive office see below and my response Dear Mr Hayward I hope all is well? Thank you for your patience while we have reviewed your case. I can completely appreciate the points you have raised regarding the warning messages on your vehicle and the situation you and your family were placed in. I can assure you, any of us including myself would have felt the same way if were in that situation. While I apprecate we are unable to predict what could have happened as a result of the faults on the vehicle, I can definitely sympathise with your viewpoints and thought behind what could have happened. When a certain issue arises with the vehicle, we have assistance in place such as our breakdown services, the AA. Please rest assured, your thoughts and suggestions will be fed back to our design team regarding the alert messages on the dashboard. Often changes are made off the back of customer comment and feedback. I appreciate every point that has been raised and cannot apologise enough for the situation you experienced. While we are unable to change what has happened, we can definitely restore your faith by offering a gesture to recognise your experience. There is no way to place a monetary gesture to describe what would be adequate here. Before I can position a gesture from my side, please can you confirm what your expectations are or if you have any suggestions you want me to explore? I await your response. Thank you for your response. I am pleased that you and Audi UK appreciate the dangerous situation that the lack of warning caused to my family and me. I note you appreciate what could have happened as a result of the Starter/generator failure but this did actually happen to an A6 Allroad , I reprint a summary of her story below, pasted from Audi Owners Forum- Posted Friday at 03:58 PM I am currently in discussion with Audi UK regarding the 48v MHEV starter generator fault on my Audi A6 Allroad, which caused it to suffer a total catastrophic failure on a Swiss motorway on 6 January 2024. Just prior to joining the motorway we had descended a steep mountain pass. If the vehicle had shutdown whilst descending the pass it would have been very difficult, potentially impossible, to stop the vehicle safely. Our children were trapped in the back seats as we could not open the doors and our dog was trapped in the load space. We travel to the Alps several times a year and I believe this vehicle to be unfit for purpose. I have reported the vehicle as a dangerous vehicle to the Driving Standards Agency. I have received a response that acknowledges a quality concern does exist, however, further investigation had been hampered by Audi refusing to release further information. I do now have the technicians report and I will be submitting this along with other evidence and await the government departments response. I have reviewed the Audi America Technical Bulletin (kindly posted on this forum by another member) which relates to this fault and it confirms that the fault affects vehicles throughout the Audi range. I have also established that there were in fact a total of 50,000 cars in the UK affected by safety recalls for the same fault in June 2020 and October 2020. This information was obtained from the UK government website. Despite being a VW and Audi driver for over 20 years, I have totally lost faith in my car and the brand and requested a buy back and so the argument continues....... I have suggested this owner writes to you but as you can see the report describes what I advised could happen. Although you suggest that some form of monetary compensation would help to my mind this is secondary. I clearly asked the following- At no time did the MMI system warn that the battery was NOT charging, there is no such warning message. How can this be? For the last 100 years of car manufacture a red ign light illuminating was probably the first ever car component failure indicator, then ammeters were fitted then my last RS6 had a voltage meter. Either way for almost 100 years drivers have been advised that their battery is or is not being charged. At no time was I given any reasonable time indication that within X minutes the car would be undriveable. WHY DOES AUDI THINK THAT IS NOW UNNESSARY TO PROVIDE A ‘NO CHARGE’ INDICATION? As am Audi owner since the 1990’s I have always had faith in the brand to provide a trustworthy, quality, well-engineered product. To regain that trust I am looking for a recall where you install a software fix so the MMI system gives the drover adequate warning of component failure which could lead to catastrophic failure. Can you please tell me if and when Audi will undertake this? If you are unable or unwilling and are happy to knowingly allow owners to drive unsafe vehicles then I too would appreciate a buy back.

Which is an excellent avenue to pursue. I am considering Rip Off Britain and Watchdog as other options. In writing to Audi I have told them they are not only risking the safety of Audi drivers and their passengers, but also the safety of other road users forced to take evasive action.

Cally, that’s a dreadful situation to find yourself in, simply dangerous for anyone to have to experience that, every parent’s nightmare as well. I’m going to reach out to Which and see whether or not they are willing to take a consumer safety orientated approach to looking into this and related cases and the way in which Audi are allowing customers to deal with this dangerous failure when it occurs by simply hiding behind warranty extensions and existing regs regarding the absence of a need to give customers at the very least an early warning for the 48/12v MHEV system when it is beginning to fail etc. Will post here if i get anywhere with that.

I am currently in discussion with Audi UK regarding the 48v MHEV starter generator fault on my Audi A6 Allroad, which caused it to suffer a total catastrophic failure on a Swiss motorway on 6 January 2024. Just prior to joining the motorway we had descended a steep mountain pass. If the vehicle had shutdown whilst descending the pass it would have been very difficult, potentially impossible, to stop the vehicle safely. Our children were trapped in the back seats as we could not open the doors and our dog was trapped in the load space. Audi UK only accepted responsibility for the repair after a one month battle and many, many telephone conversations and emails (from me). My request to communicate in writing, has so far been ignored, with not one written response being received. The vehicle was repaired under the 'special' 7 year extended warranty. I have been informed that the part number has been changed, but they cannot confirm if there has been a design change which would prevent such a catastrophic 'out of the blue' failure from reoccurring. Due to a change in part number there will be no further warranty on this fault. My car was returned to me a week ago today and on our test drive it immediately showed a fault, albeit a different one. This time the fault advises 'P button fault, please contact workshop'. This fault was not previously apparent and we therefore do not know if it is a consequence of the catastrophic fault, or due to workshop intervention. One week later I am still waiting to hear from the dealership. We travel to the Alps several times a year and I believe this vehicle to be unfit for purpose. I have reported the vehicle as a dangerous vehicle to the Driving Standards Agency. I have received a response that acknowledges a quality concern does exist, however, further investigation had been hampered by Audi refusing to release further information. I do now have the technicians report and I will be submitting this along with other evidence and await the government departments response. I have reviewed the Audi America Technical Bulletin (kindly posted on this forum by another member) which relates to this fault and it confirms that the fault affects vehicles throughout the Audi range. I have also established that there were in fact a total of 50,000 cars in the UK affected by safety recalls for the same fault in June 2020 and October 2020. This information was obtained from the UK government website. Despite being a VW and Audi driver for over 20 years, I have totally lost faith in my car and the brand and requested a buy back and so the argument continues.......