2017 Audi Allroad

[MiniDave]

Yes, we did it again.....

This time we traded in the black 2014 Allroad. According to what I've read and heard these cars (2013 & 2014 B8) are supposedly a grenade with the pin pulled after 80K miles. Ours has been trouble free but had 80,660 miles on it and we didn't know if we were about to have a problem or not. The bride found this one at the local Mercedes dealer - one owner and 25K miles on it. The "B9" generation do not have the same reputation - I checked with everyone I know and they seem to be pretty bulletproof - as much as any German car can be - but our hope is that with the low miles on the car and the few miles we drive per year we'll get a lot of service out of both of these cars.

The 2017 and 2018 we bought are equipped exactly the same with just two small differences - the 2017 has the arches painted in body color (A $1000 option only available on three body colors) and it has "sports" seats, that have a small amount more bolstering and extendable thigh support. Other than that I can't find any difference in them, and they both drive like new cars even tho 6 & 7 years old. The interiors are almost the same, both have grey seats, but the white 2017 has a black headliner.

The bride isn't really a fan of the white car or it's mostly black interior, so she'll take the silver one and I'll drive the white one.

I've driven Audis since the 70's and always had pretty good luck with them and I figure these may be the last cars we buy since we're getting up there in age, and tend to keep our cars a fairly long time (my 2009 MINI Clubby for 15 years, 2004 Audi Allroad for 16 years and so on)

We bought the black one right at the start of the pandemic (July 2020) with 68K on it so we only drove it about 12K in the time we had it, including several trips to North Carolina, Colorado and our yearly drive to Manhattan for Thanksgiving and as I said it's been trouble free - so much so that the dealer already has it for sale on his lot. I'll be curious to see how long it lasts there as they have it priced higher than what we paid for it 4 years ago!

[94touring]

Ok now figure out the hitch and tow lights!

[MiniDave]

Not sure I'm going to put a hitch on the white one, since I already have it on the silver one and I can just use that when I need to tow the green Mini. I do need to sort out the tow lights tho.....

If I decide to do a hitch on the white car, I'll put on a 2" instead of the 1 1/4" that's on the silver car. That one's fine for towing the Mini or even my old trailer,, but if I want to haul a car on a trailer (like Clancy's lightweight one) I'll need a heavier rated one - this 1 1/4 is good for 2000lbs, but the car is rated for 3500lbs. Clancy's trailer is about 800, add a 1500lb car and I'm still good to go.

The only issue is the heavier rated hitches are 3 times the money of the one I put on the silver car, plus I need to do the lights again and that unit was another $200 - so all in about $750. I'm pretty maxed out on spending money for a while.....

[MiniDave]

So it's been decided, she has taken the 2018 silver as her car and I'll take the 2017 white one. She prefers the std seats and the lighter interior and has moved all her crap into it (to me women seem to treat their car like an extra big purse - she carries everything in it!) She also has it set up for the Pups, with sheep skins for them to lay on and harness clips to restrain them in the event of a crash.

So, today I took the white one to get the tires balanced - the only thing I could find that it needed,  and investigated what it would cost to get a second key as they delivered it to me with only one - holy crap! $900 for a key and it only can come from the factory - can't buy an ebay special and have it re-programmed!

To their credit they've contacted the previous owner who says the extra key may be at their other home in California, and they're checking to see if it's there. Sheesh!

I'm going to hold off on buying a hitch at this point till I see if I have to buy an expensive key first.

The dealer also had this emergency kit for the car that I picked up today - no idea what one of these costs. It has jumper cables, a multi tool, gloves, emergency triangles, and even a poncho in case you have to change a tire in the rain!

Edit - found it on Audi's website - $85 from the dealer.

[MiniDave]

I've put about 400 miles on the white Audi the last two days running back and forth to Prather's....so far so good. No issues of any kind, tho I did get a bit of a surprise when a guy braked suddenly in front of me and turned a corner - the car put up a red warning triangle and LOUD alarm right in the middle of the cluster - apparently it's part of the driver safety package. Scared the crap out of me, cause a red warning symbol usually means fatal engine damage or something.

I also got the tires balanced and it's smooth as it can be now.

Got an unhappy phone call from the dealer on Thursday saying that my check had been returned from the bank! I went to them and got a cashier's check to replace the personal one I wrote and Monday me and the bank are going to have a "conversation" about it. It was the right account and there was more than sufficient funds to cover it.

BTW, we've named the two Audis Hans and Frans   

[94touring]

Hans and Franz

[MiniDave]

So the white Allroad has been trouble free so far, the fuel mileage is very good, I'm averaging in the low 30's including town driving so overall I'm pretty happy with it.

Still no joy on the key - the folks who traded it in have a home in Palm Springs - which is where this car lived - and I'm betting the extra key is there, sitting on a desk or something and they just haven't been back out there. I'm not hopeful that they're going to spend any effort finding and returning the key.

However, I'm not ready to spend $900 on one either......I'll just have to make damn sure I don't lose this one or I'm in deep shit!

[MiniDave]

Having put some miles on both of my "new" Allroads a few interesting things have come to light....

The first is the fuel mileage is even better than expected, I drove to Hallet for the Mini CanAm race and got mid 30's, driving down to Ozarks last weekend proved that wasn't a fluke as it showed 35.3 for that leg. Coming home was against a stiff wind, so it dropped a bit to 33.9, but still really good for a 3800lb car. Shows what progress has been made in aero and fuel efficient turbo motors and gearboxes.

On the not so great side, I'm finding the start/stop feature has its good and bad sides.

I supposed it contributes to better fuel mileage in town, but the required extra big (and heavier and I'm sure - expensive) battery and wear and tear on the starter motor make me wonder if it's really worth it. You don't feel it shut off a lot of times, but I always feel it start up again as you get a little shake as it cranks up. The real downside to me is that sometimes it chooses the wrong time to do it - I was pulling out of a driveway onto a very busy street and right when I was about to go the engine stopped, of course it fired right back up again (it starts when you let up on the brake pedal) but that delay and the delay in getting going with cars coming at me at 50 mph was disconcerting to say the least. You can shut the feature off by pressing a button, but you have to do that every time you start the car.....as far as I know, no one has found a way around it in the software.

The other thing is the frequency that it does it. If I'm in town it might do it every time I stop, whether for a stoplight, stop sign or whatever and I get tired of it. Of course the solution is right there on the dash, but that's what it's for, right? At longer lights I can see the advantage, but when it's restarting only moments after it shuts off, I dunno......

What I find I'm doing is shutting the feature off in heavy stop and go situations, out in the suburbs where the stop lights are further apart I leave it engaged.

The navigation has a speak and spell feature, but I haven't found it particularly good - it had no idea what or where Hallet, Oklahoma was and also no idea where/what Ozarks international was (OK, there's an excuse for that - it's didn't exist in 2017) but it also couldn't find the town of Lauri, Mo. So I reserve judgement for now - Rose says she thinks Audi will do one free update on it as it's never been done in the history of the car even tho it's well out of warranty.

I'm still learning how to do all sorts of things with it, but I really like the lighting features, there's a little LED in each of the outside door handles for instance, and to turn on one of the interior spot or reading lights you just touch it, then touch it again to turn it off - cool!

Rose has the 2018 set up to her liking, and even found a way to keep the grocery bags in place when she goes shopping - she also really likes the kick feature to open and close the tailgate.

I still think the 20-teens cars represent a good value in terms of technology without being over the top like some of the newest cars are, and for reasonably depreciated prices.

[BruceK]

I just spent two weeks driving a new Audi Q8 in New England on vacation with my wife and her sister and her husband. It was their car, only a couple of months old and with just 4K miles. They drove up from Florida, we flew there,  and I took over driving duties for the couple of weeks when we were traveling together in New England. 

The Q8 had the start/stop feature and by the 3rd day I had trained myself to immediately turn it off as soon as I started the car. I can't stand that in any car. Whatever gas savings it supposedly generates is more than certainly overshadowed by increased engine wear because of the unnecessary starts and extra duty cycles on the starter. Not to mention the safety aspect as you found out. It's a bad gimmick.

[MiniDave]

What did you think of the Q8? I think all the SUV things are just too big and clunky, tho I know they've made huge progress in making them ride and drive well.

Me, I'll stick with my wagons TYVM.

I also just reach for the "shut it off" button when I start up, then I don't even have to think about it again. At the fuel mileage the car is getting - and compared to our 2004 and its mid teens mileage - I'm ok with sacrificing a tenth or two around town.

Oh, and our 2014 is still on the dealer's lot, they've dropped the price several times but I still think they're reaching for the moon with it.......right now it's still priced higher than what we paid for it 4 years ago! They originally had it priced at $19,500!

https://www.aristocratmotors.com/inventory/used-2014-audi-allroad-2-0t-premium-plus-quattro-4d-wagon-wa1ufafl8ea097676/

There were a few things I liked better about the 2014 - I liked the wood on the dash and doors (I like the silver metal dash on the 2018 even better - I looked it up and I can get those pieces for only $2K!), I liked the 8 speed automatic even tho it's probably not as efficient as the 7 speed stick in the 2017, and I had just spent $1000 on new tires for it, and I'm going to have to do the same on the 2017 as these tires are original to the car and while they have a ton of tread left they're already 8 years old.

The nav and interface on the new cars is an improvement, and both the new ones have a far better stereo/sound system.

I can't say I can find any real difference in the ride/drive quality, and although the new ones have the adjustable shock settings, most of the time I just leave it in "auto" tho I did play with it on the last two trips I took just for fun, but usually wound up with it back in the auto setting again.

[94touring]

Funny how we all loathe that stop start feature.

[Brit_in_TX]

The stop start feature in general does not bother me.  I have had multiple cars with it (the feature has been in Europe for over a decade). Never had an issue with a starter or additional engine wear.  The only car I have with it now is a 2024 Honda Odyssey, and it does not bother me in general driving.  What really infuriates me is when you have come to stop, press the Park button (as it is buttons rather than a shifter) it starts the freaking engine!

[BruceK]

What did you think of the Q8? I think all the SUV things are just too big and clunky, tho I know they've made huge progress in making them ride and drive well.

Me, I'll stick with my wagons TYVM.

I'm not a fan of the Q8.  Seemed to have "tech" features just for the sake of justifying the big markup over the sister VW Atlas. It drove nice and refined, but it was fitted with absurdly wide tires, which tram-lined badly when given a chance.

In my opinion, piano black should be banned forever on any car interior. It's awful. Just a perfect way to collect fingerprints and smears.  And the Q8 was loaded with piano black all over the dash and center counsole.  Nearly all switches on the dashboard were goofy haptic switches set in a piano black expanse.  Plus the piano black plastic feature extended all the way across to the passenger side of the dash and caused stray reflections to bounce into the driver's eye (mine!).

My sister-in-law and her husband preferred to use Audi's native navigation system rather than Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.  And since I was driving their car as a guest, I stuck with that system.  For some reason, Audi thinks that Google Earth view (the satellite images where you see houses and plowed fields and parks and parking lots) is preferable to a regular map view, So that's what I navigated with. At least the Q8 had a nice feature where the navigation could also be displayed on the screen right in front of the driver with a minimized speedometer and tachometer.  Maybe it was just a setting and a map view could replace that.

[MiniDave]

I think it's just a setting on the map.....quite a disparity in temp settings there, Bruce!

The touch screens are why we bought the years of cars that we did, we really didn't like trying to manipulate those - it's very distracting. Ours are the generation just before that so we have actual buttons. One thing I do like about the switch gear on my car is if you just touch the buttons without activating them it shows you the options that button controls - for example if you just touch the fan speed, it puts up a graphic showing what speed it's on and what other speeds are available. It's pretty cool actually.

If you input a destination into the map, as you get to the next instruction it will pop it up in the cluster, then as you pass that it goes back to the regular instrument display.

Like Craig I've gotten used to the start/stop, so most of the time I just leave it alone, and if I'm doing a lot of stop and go I reach down and hit the button to disable it.

My silver car has a textured silver dash that I really like, the white one has this charcoal colored wood which I really don't care much for, but as it has a matte finish I don't pay much attention to it.

[BruceK]

So you could read the temperature settings through all the smudges!? 

Yeah, who knew that cars having dual climate control would really allow some people to put their freak on?  The outside temperature was a windy 45 degrees, we were stopping often to take  scenic photos outside, and my front seat passenger was from balmy Florida so...

[Brit_in_TX]

The move away from physical buttons is so annoying.  I have noticed that in some cars they have shifted back to having more physical buttons rather than just the software ones. 

My in-laws have just got a 2025 GMC 2500 and it has a combination of physical buttons and software ones - which was very important to them. It also has Google Maps built in rather than using some proprietary option that gets out of date. 

[MiniDave]

Yes, there was a lot of pushback from customers on the no buttons approach - people don't like it and it's very distracting to have to scroll thru several sub-menus to try and find a control you're looking for.....even worse trying to do that while you drive!

In my Audis, the panel is only a display.....

Maybe once they get voice recognition to actually work they can go to fewer buttons but for me, I'll stick with what I know works.