Beezil

On 7/2/2018 at 1:54 PM, redrook said:

Having decided that an A4 avant is probably not going to be big enough for my needs, I'm looking to potentially pull the trigger on a C7 avant some time in the next year or so. I'll be looking at a pre-facelift most likely, and bluetooth audio streaming is top of my wish list. I see in the brochures etc that bluetooth phone connectivity was standard, does that include playing music?

If not, did any of the MMI systems have that option? I know there was an MMI and an MMI Nav Plus, which had the bigger screen. Nav isn't that important to me, but I'd look for the better MMI system if it came with audio streaming.

Also, the brochure seems to indicate that an aux-in was standard in 2012, is that true?

Cheers!

I'm sure it'll connect to Bluetooth but you'll need an MMI connection lead to plug in your music device if you want high quality music reproduction. My 2017 doesn't much like using Bluetooth for music feed.

Mine is a straight 2.0D Ultra SE. As already stated by Envy, the "Ultra" badge is just indicating the low-emission engine that's fitted. RFL is £20 per YEAR!!! And my 15 mile drive to work (mix of urban and dual carriageway) gets me 50mpg, although on a recent trip from Swindon to Norwich pretty much all motorway got me 62mpg.

It's not a USB port, it's the MMI port which needs an adapter lead from Audi. I was given a twin pack of leads, one of which was MMI-to-Lightning (which I use), and I'm pretty sure the other is MMI-to-USB.

On 31/01/2018 at 6:36 AM, MLC788 said:

Yeah true....thanks mate will hopefully have a long and prosperous future with Audi 😃

cheers

matt

If you're worried about the DPF even whilst it's fine, get yourself some Forte DPF Cleaner from Amazon. It'll only cost around £15 and is just a fuel additive. I've had several friends who've ended up with DPF light staying on and the garage have told them it's a new DPF needed. When they've chucked a bottle of this through and gave the car a good thrashing, low and behold the light has gone out! And if it doesn't work, it's cost you £15.

On 19/03/2018 at 8:33 AM, Dan1981 said:

Yeah I think I'm going to have to.  It's a lease through a broker just to add more complexity!

No, not IN the centre arrest, but UNDER it. I don't think it's a USB port, but something slightly different which my dealer gave me an adapter lead to connect my iPhone with.

Mine's only an Ultra SE aka peasant's spec :0)

10 hours ago, Lost boy said:

The dealer has just got back to me. 

The warranty department have said that the Audi extended  warranty would not cover any future engine oil related issues...

I guess that could be anything engine or gear box related ? But the dealer is still claiming it counts as Audi approved !

I’ve asked him to think about that again. I’m seriously concerned that they are now miss-selling the car.

If another member of the public doesn’t spot this then they could be buying a complete lemon at full Audi approved list price.

if they were to offer me a substantial discount to reflect the risk I might think about it , but so far that’s not forthcoming!

unbelievable....is this standard Audi custom and practise? I’m new to the brand . 

It seems to me an awful lot of money for someone to have spent on a car (when it was new) only to spend six months or so driving around with a "service due" light on and not bother taking it in for service. If it was leased originally, there's a likelihood that the company/individual running the car would have been paying for maintenance as well, which wouldn't make sense. And if they hadn't paid for maintenance, then they would have been hit with a fine for returning the car to the lease company without it being serviced according to manufacturer's instructions.

Why not try speaking to Audi Customer Services about it, and they may be able to check on whether it had actually been serviced but just not had the handbook stamped? Remember that some dealers are just numpties, and would only check their own computer system in case they had serviced it, and not bother checking the VAG system as well.

Hi Paul

Surely it should be your insurance company organising the repair, not hers?

Anyway, sadly the issue, as an insurance repair, will have a limit as to how much the insurance companies will be willing to pay out, otherwise the vehicle will be written off. There may be an option for you to buy the vehicle back off the insurance company and carry out the repairs yourself, but it will forever have a "Category A/B/C/D write off" marker against it meaning that the insurance for this car will mostly likely be affected for all of time, and will also have an effect on any resale value of the car.

Just remember that if they do write it off and offer you an amount, you do NOT have to accept it especially if there are other circumstances which may mean they should be offering more (e.g. high quality condition of car). A good thing would be to find identical cars for sale with similar mileage/condition as yours (forget how how far away they are from you, it's purely to get an accurate value). My nephew recently done this when his car was written off by another driver - he's 18 years old, so the insurance company tried to offer him too little, so he got prices and went back to them with these and they offered a higher amount which he accepted.

On 11/12/2017 at 10:05 AM, Steve Q said:

I would have to agree and suggest this issue was caused by low battery voltage. It's amazing how many electronic issues can be traced back to a low battery. If the battery is low then this will prevent the start stop to not work as it takes alot on the battery if that makes sense. 

Sounds like everything is back to normal now though :) 

Cheers

Steve

I would concur with this. There is so mu h load on the electrical system these days that it's possible to get minor current drops which will be enough to flag a fault momentarily. Back in the early Noughties, I can remember going on an Audi technical course where it was mentioned that they were looking into upgrading the electrical system on future A8's to a higher voltage (24v I think) to cope with the increasing electrical consumption, but obviously never did it. With the even higher consumption on new cars that wasn't there even then, I do wonder how long before they start thinking about it again.

Oh, and electric isn't viable, because as it stands our national power grid is barely keeping up with regular demand, so can someone explain where the hell the energy will come from once we even get to 10% of vehicles using it?

2 hours ago, Trevor said:

I have heard the debate for alternative fuel sources to environmentally power the motor car for about 35 years now and guess what?  It's still no closer to where it was all that time ago.

Years ago we had LPG as a contender which in reality is not too bad as it is a very clean burning fuel....incidentally, the manufacturers and researchers are discussing the use of Range Extenders which could be powered by LPG...so full circle I think.

Full electromotive power....I think not, where's the electricity coming from. In the UK, not a chance! In the Nordic countries who are completely set up with producing electricity from Wind, Wave, Solar, etc....yes it can work.

Diesel....the manufacturers have now designed the new Euro 6 range of engines and exhaust after-treatment to become as eco-friendly as a petrol engine (almost) and this has cleaned the 'dirty diesels' act up for the remaining future of this power source.

Petrol, no problem....unless it's running badly or on open loop on start up but generally very efficient. Incidentally, the most efficient petrol engine is a race engine as it combusts to produce maximum power and extract full calorific content of the fuel leaving very little emissions.

Hybrid....now you're talking!  probably the most efficient power source for a motor car. However, the manufacturers are now dropping their hybrid programme systematically to go to full plugin Electric Vehicles. Why???

Hydrogen...not while there are oil fields out there providing oil for refining and running power stations. Sad but true!

Attended a lecture by one of the Directors of BMW and he stated that their petrol and diesel engines would run into the next 10-12 years with no need to switch to EV. He also stated that autonomous cars will not ever likely be run in most countries unless there is a completely new build city to factor this in. Although they are producing full EV vehicles and supporting infrastructure for charging, it is still a problem with charge range, although this is also improving over time.

So, watch this space....meanwhile, I'll still enjoy both Petrol and Diesel until they take them from my cold dead hand 

LPG wasn't ever taken seriously, as only a couple of manufacturers ever offered it. The rest, probably because of lack of govt subsidies, never invested or developed the fuel system. LPG systems were (and probably still are) in effect as unrefined as a carburettor just dumping buckets of fuel into a modern engine fitted with multi-point refined fuel injection, which was proven by one of our Range Rovers with LPG which blew it's air filter box apart with the force of the backfire.

When working for a fleet company, Ford UK told me that there was no LPG conversion system (including revised cylinder head), yet my colleague was able to obtain a genuine one through Ford in Scandinavia (as it was offered as an option out there).

Most manufacturers official response to the question around warranty on vehicle being fired with LPG was a flat "no, your warranty will be null & void".

The best response was from either Toyota or VAG (afraid I can't remember which one!), which the letter back to me stated "your warranty will remain valid only if you fit a manufacturer-approved system", which made me think a bit more positive until I called my contact and asked the question of how many systems were approved, to which they said "erm, none".

On 29/10/2017 at 12:57 AM, Lightsout79 said:

The problem with electric cars is the sheer amount of fossil fuels that you have to use to mine the materials , not to mention coal furnaces to extract what you need from the ore !

Google Lithium mines and you will see what I mean, the best from of car power supply would be nuclear not electric.

Trouble is, this issue with indirect environmental costs has been with us for years.

Back when catalytic converters started to get used (compulsory in the UK in 1992 but fitted to a number of cars before then), many rare metals had to be dug out of the ground to go into the cat unit. Being an ex-mechanic, I know this was being discussed by us lowly grease monkeys in the late 90s, and sadly I doubt anything has changed since then and also doubt there is any effective system in place to help remove these metals from scrapped cat-converters before they get crushed.

Having also worked in the car fleet industry 15ish years ago and being involved in the alternative fuel/dualfuel fleet being operated by the fleet company I worked for, I found it impossible to get a real-life figure of what it cost environmentally to produce an electric vehicle compared to the regular petrol or diesel variant of the same vehicle (which is actually a pretty efficient way of manufacturing nowadays as they've had a hundred years or so to get good at it).  And don't even try to get an "end-of-life" destruction cost to the environment from a manufacturer, as they don't want to embarrass themselves.

Just a little update to the thoughts of removing your DPF filter......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41761864

Hi Tom

Just to add to what has been said already, if you top the AdBlue up yourself, do be very wary of spilling any on yourself or the car. You may as well chuck brake fluid on the paintwork for the damage it will do. So if you end up with any left, DO NOT store it anywhere that may heat up as I'm aware of someone who left their AdBlue bottle in the boot a couple of summers ago for a few days when summer hit it's hottest, and ended up having to replace the whole interior of the car as it'd been ruined by the vapour once the bottle exploded from the heat.

Just to clarify, you are technically breaking the law by removing your DPF. I mentioned previously (see above) about a friend of mine looking to remove his DPF. The garage suggested he may want to look at finding someone to do the removal for him as they were not willing to carry out the work as they would be heavily fined if the authorities tracked any DPF removal back to them. The car owner would be fined as well. There is an argument that most modern cars can still meet current emissions regulations without the DPF so therefore pass the MoT, but if you've removed the DPF and it does fail you're looking at the cost of refitting and the purchase of a new DPF unit assuming you haven't kept hold of it.

And remember if you've removed the DPF and the car is still in warranty period, Audi will more than likely argue that you've invalidated the warranty on anything to do with the engine, possibly even more.

It looks like I have the same model as you Wesley, and would suggest if its bothering you to put it into manual as soon as you get to m'way speed and knock down a couple of gears to get the revs over 3000rpm. I do occasionally get home after a 14-mile (mostly at 70mph) drive from work to have the fan running for 10/15 minutes once I've switched the ignition off, and believe this is to help dissipate the heat created by the DPF regen.

I've got the free version of RossTech VAG-COM running on a MacBook thru Parallels (it can only operate via Windows). I've used it many times to check and clear fault codes on my old 2001 A6 Avant (C5) and my wife's 2001 New Beetle. The old A6 was running Canbus, so I would assume the software still works on newer models.

The only problem I've had with it is that I went the cheapo-route and bought a £20 connector lead, which is now playing up as it has to be wiggled in the USB slot.

As already stated, buy the best you can get. Remember that your tyres & brakes are the most important components on your car, so is it worth saving a few quid for lower quality parts? You decide!

If you decide to do yourself, then the parts dept at your Audi dealer will sell you the genuine article, but often the likes of EuroCarParts will provide the exact same part but in a different box (i.e. without the VAG logo) and for less money. Also remember that even if you are a complete amateur mechanic, then you've probably only had 1 day's less training than kwikfit employees.

I believe the DPF needs the temperature of high-revs to burn the soot off, which is why manufacturers recommend a blat down a fast road in a low gear.

Recently had a friend asking advice from me (I used to be a technician) as his Vx Insignia DPF light wouldn't go off. Garage had told him he needed a new DPF filter at a cost of £1500, but they suggested he may want to get it removed instead but would need to find someone willing to do this. When I checked this out I found that, yes, he could have been fined (£1-2k if memory serves) if they ever found out he had no DPF - would never have been found as a "dummy" DPF would have been fitted to replace the real thing but personally I wouldn't want to take the risk. Anyway, I suggested before doing anything else he try chucking a bottle of Forte DPF Cleaner through for £15, and low and behold, the light went off and stayed off!

So, my suggestion would be try the Forte Cleaner first.

Thank you both.

I actually spent a few months driving for service and sales at our local Audi dealer back in 2004/5 and got to drive near enough everything in the range, but I can safely say this A6 is an even better drive than the A8 was back then!

Thanks Trevor.

There have been "other" cars, but i'm too ashamed to mention them here :)

Showing my age now (late 30s), but more interested in getting some decent fuel consumption figures, as opposed to the 23mpg I got from the Avant (on a good day)!!!

Well, just picked up my brand spanking new A6 (C7) 2.0TDi Ultra S-tronic in Brilliant Black, feeling like Christmas has come early :)

Have previously owned the following (although never new, this is my first time!):-

1987 Audi 100 2.2E

1987 Audi 90 2.2

1988 Audi 90 2.3 3-speed auto (although it never much like 3rd gear)

2001 Audi A6 Avant 2.7bi-turbo (ruined my clean driving licence!!!)

Hello everyone!