My A7. 7 Days in.....

[IT]

So, I'll be honest, its been a little scary. I've known the D2/C5 and D3/C6 models inside out for some time, so making the leap to a much newer, more modern Audi was going to take a little adjustment.

You can jump from a Q7 to a C6 to a D3 and feel at home as its all kind of the same really, the same generation at least and you're quickly comfortable with everything thats going on.

This is really quite a different beast. The amount of driver assist, both standard and optional makes it all a bit overwhelming, especially when its a pricey piece of kit and really rule number one is not to prang it.....

However, 7 days in and we're feeling all adjusted, and finding the new widgetry helpful overall.

Heres my list of top findings so far, for anyone else considering such a leap:

1) Sat Nav. Eureka. Its finally here. A useful, useable, all encompasing unit. It has full postcode entry (yee haa), and lifted directly from the RNS-E from nearly a decade ago, it finally presents you with 3 route options, not just 1, so you can choose the A1 over the M1 for example. We also have the next 3 turn by turn instructions present on screen, along with the next services, and fuel brand. The googlemaps satelite overlay is pretty but deosnt really add much function tbh. Why its taken so long to get this tech here I dont know, but thankfully its here now and its awesome.....



2) Keyless handles. They've finally had a design make over. On the D3 / Q7 / Probably the C6, the 'push to lock' mechanism was a flimsy rubber insert button that broke. Religiously, and at £200 a shot they wern't cheap either. Thankfully, the newer ones are now solid state so you just make contact with them to lock, and they work perfectly. Presumably, with no moving parts, they will last too....

3) Auto boot close. Hurrah. Finally, you can not only open the boot with the key, but close it too. You do have to hold the button down for the duration, and it does emit an embarrassing 'commerical vehicle reversing tone' but hey, its a step closer for sure.

4) Stop Start. Hmm. I'm totally not convinced on this one. Whether it stop / starts is based on the force you put on the brake pedal. Reducing the pressure on the pedal causes the engine to restart, which is great when the lights hit amber etc and you can lift up slightly to get ready. You can press a button on the dash to override it for that driving session, but its back on next time. Presumably all about the overall Co2 and tax disc etc, but for me, I'd rather just be ticking over ready.....

5) Visual PDC. Some folks in the later D2 / C6 configs will have had the graphical PDC sensor where it shows you the sensors front and rear and how close things are. This takes it one step closer by giving a full 360 degree of the car: As you reverse past things, the side mounted PDC sensors note what is where, and based on your steering adjustments, knows what will/wont be coming into contact down the side. Cool.



6) Reversing camera, er, with many friends. Technically, its two fish eye lenses mounted front and rear, which are then split up into 6 camera views, front and rear, left center and right. Its quite clever. Almost overwhelming to be honest. If you have a driveway that spills blindly out onto a busy street it could be handy, otherwise im not so sure....



7) Park Assist. If you feel the 360 degree graphical view, or the 6 camera angles are just not cutting it for you, you can get the car to park itself, and it does work. You drive down the street, press the park assist button and indicate to the side of the road you wish to park on. It the uses side mounted ultrasonics to meausure the available parking gaps, and when it finds one, asks you to put it reverse and take your hands off the wheel. You then let it creep back, and it spins the wheel as required. It then asks you to put it in drive and it straightens up. If you're truely useless as parking, it can even help you get out afterwards too....

8) LED headlights. Wow. I've seen sheets of A4 that look less white. Its truely dazzling the light output that is generated. It makes xenons looks dated, and halogens look like antiques. It also has an extra motorway driving bulb to light up further in the distance at speed, in addition to the usual adaptive light-swinging-round-corner-malarky.

9) Pillarless, twin pane doors with extended leather and shiny Bang and Olufsen speaker grills. Nuff said. Sub zero cool.



10) When you select reverse, it (optionally) turns down the music for you, and turns it up after. Saves me a job I'd normally do manually...

11) Wifi Hotspot. Now. I thought this was a bit pointless. I have sim cards in my phone, ipad etc so why would I need it? Signal strength my dear chap. In 700 miles I dont recall the car dropping service once, where the iphone, sheilded by a zillion layers of complex materials struggles to keep on top of email on the move. Now the phone is on the car wifi, it has all the data it can eat, quite literally.

12) Night Vision. The sort of thing Montgomery Brewster would have ordered to see a couple of grand down the pan. Its very clever. It shows you a true thermal image of whats in front, and is amazing on back roads. On the basis that humans and signifiant animals leak lots of body heat, they show up as big blobs that it highlights in yellow. If it thinks they're coming into the cars path it alerts the driver and flashes the headlights to alert the pedestrian. Its quick too. It genuinely sees people before I do, but still, a trip to specsavers and a set of driving glasses will see me a lot of change from its £2100 list price....



13) Adaptive cruise. My pet feature, and it goes from strength to strength. Now, it uses radar, ultrasonic and video camera input to detect whats going on. It will crawl along in stop start traffic, even restarting crawling from a standstill if you've only been standing for a few seconds. Although undocumented, I've had several instances also where it wont undertake a vehicle in the lane immediately to the right, which is refreshing as middle lane hoggers always foxed the earlier versions.....

14) The drive. I'm still getting used to this to be honest. Having just stepping out of a V10, most things are going to seem slower. Having said that, if you put it in sport and nail it, its quite alarming how quickly it shifts. The combination of the Stronic gearbox pre selecting the next gear, and the supercharging getting it to the redline is really quite potent....

15) A2DP. Finally, the car can play my music off my phone. Which is good, because my Vauxhall van could do that last year and it was a bit tedious that I actually had to copy music onto a USB stick to hear it in my car.



16) The bang and olufsen in the A7 is £6300 and 1200 watts. Thats a grand more, and 200 watts more than the D3 (!). To be honest, I'm not sure i can really hear that extra value over the D3 setup, but its comforting to know I have it. And yes, it still has motorised pop up tweaters like the D3.



17) The "hill holder clutch" is the worst named invention ever. What it actually does, is hold the car with the brakes, any time you use the brakes to come to a standstill. Then, it doesnt let go of the brakes till you hit the throttle. Yes, it will hold on a hill, (uphill or downhill) but will also stop you creeping in traffic etc. Its actually quite cool once you get used to it....



18) The door mirrors will fold in (optionally) when you lock the car. To be honest, I'm not that bothered about this feature as it'll rarely be parked on a roadside, however its a great visual indication that you did remember to lock it, and I guess it looks kinda cool to onlookers...

19) The on/offness of the heated steering wheel is stored in your memory, and if on, then its thermostatic coming on depending on the ambient temperature. Its lovely. You have to experience to really get how nice they feel !

20) The boot is cavernous. Which is good, as thats why I bought it. obviously more shallow towards the rear, but generous further back, and with the rear seats folded its quite staggering. It also comes with parcel shelfs etc to keep the contents private from prying eyes which is my usual reason for preferring a saloon...

Overall, it feels like its 1, or 2 at the most generations from being completely driverless. The reports of driverless cars from google etc do genuinely seem less pie in the sky having seen what this car, with its 4 year old technology can achieve today.

So, on a day to day basis you can do a 200 mile motorway journey and barely exert any effort whatsoever, but best of all, you can switch it all off, and go for a blast on a B road, with its springs, well weighted steering, sport suspension, and supercharger it feels superb....

[mannyo]

Very nice Ian, cant wait to see it in the flesh.

[PsYcHe]

All very nice.. Gives me 6 months to work on SWMBO for my replacement motor.. Or I may just keep the D3 for a bit.

[Adrian E]

Nice write up Ian

I don't remember reading whether yours is ex-demo, with emphasis on the top end options? The demo car I had recently was SE spec with tiny wheels and little spec so missed out on most of this!

Was your B8 an early one? Reason for asking is that a lot of changes from a D3 feature on our S5 Sportback too, and if ours was a year newer and a facelift with the rectangular front fogs it would have even more of them.

Some shared experience with our new to us 2011 '5 mini brother to yours, in case others read this and think 'I just wish it was a bit smaller'

The 3G HDD nav (or tech pack high in B8 terms) includes the route options (you have to turn it on, it's off by default) but doesn't get full postcode. The directions overlay is also available if you select it. You have to go up to the 3GP (3G Plus) of the facelift to get Google maps, the fancy new graphics and an actual working RSAP capability with an iphone. Apparently nothing stopping people swapping the MMI unit to the 3GP - it's plug and play, near enough.

Keyless entry sounds the same as ours - didn't really want it after reports of earlier unreliability, but not having to dig the key out of your pocket is surprisingly useful! It has the touch sensitive handles rather than an actual button.

The A7 loaner I had recently had hill hold, which I found really useful with stop/start. Taking your foot off the brake would make the engine start, so it was ready to go as soon as lights changed. I'm actively looking at upgrading our S5 with it - apparently reasonably easy with a new switch and running 2 wires to the ABS module under the bonnet.

Stop/start is fitted because the NEDC drive cycle used for CO2 figures has a significant amount of time spent idling, which obviously if the engine cuts out equals zero emissions. It only really makes sense as a user if you spend a lot of time commuting in town traffic. Otherwise it's just odd and vaguely pointless! Only fitted on facelift '5s IIRC?

Only gripe I have about the Sportback shape as a whole is that there's no rear wiper - there really should be with such a large, flat, glass area. Obviously it sheets off eventually but it'd be nice if you could clear the glass. The lack of an auto tailgate option even on the S5 shape is a shame, but I guess comes down to a lack of space.

Folding door mirrors on the '5 can be specced on their own, but usually are only fitted if the memory seat pack has been added. Most don't have it, but as you say it's useful with 'advanced key' to confirm the car is locked. You do have a couple of seconds after locking to pull the handle to confirm it's locked, unlike my parents Lexus which just unlocks immediately!

I'm actually rather pleased to see there's a gulf between the available spec on the '5 and '7 - too often in modern cars you pick the size of body you want and spec everything you desire off the options list. It makes a halo model rather difficult to justify but in this case there's so many toys you can have on the '7 that just aren't available on the smaller models.

I really wish adaptive cruise was a more common option, but it sounds like yours has a much more sophisticated system than the B8 anyway. It's rocking horse poo to find it on a B8 of any type - seen maybe 4 with it in the time I've been looking at them.

Depending on whether the centre diff oil leak has been rectified on the D2 before ADI we may have to have a Sportback corner to the stand!

[tintin]

Great write up Ian - I got up this morning, opened my laptop, and thought "what can I read over breakfast that's going to be interesting" - then found your post . I love your "analytical/enthusiast" posts on Audis: always very informed ('natch..), and detailed, but with the love of these cars that makes them very readable

As I said in my earlier post, this is probably the only other Audi I'd buy now after my D2, and this is a great post to give me a real "feel" for this model - thanks.

[gninnam]

Nice right up and piccy's Ian

Sounds like you really like the 7 so might be looking at one in the future then

[tonupkid]

Really enjoyed your write-up Ian. You have now promoted the 7 to possible future car status
The other benefit of the brake hold is that you don't need to be sitting on the brake, and blinding the poor people behind. Unless they've been tailgating you or something
Just wondering, our Q5 radio always comes on with the ignition. This drives me bonkers, does anyone know how to disable this?

[IT]

Originally Posted by Adrian E

Nice write up Ian

I don't remember reading whether yours is ex-demo, with emphasis on the top end options?

One owner, factory order built to spec. He had to wait 5 months for it! To be fair, it would be unlikely you'd find a demo with this much kit.

I have the original sales invoice. The options came to just over 18K. //After// Discount

And this is the one achillies heel of the A7, and I noted it was reporting in press snippets before I bought this one - It has some fantastic tech available, but is almost all optional and mucho extra wonga. Im sure the same could probably be said for the D4 mindst....

Originally Posted by Adrian E

Was your B8 an early one? Reason for asking is that a lot of changes from a D3 feature on our S5 Sportback too, and if ours was a year newer and a facelift with the rectangular front fogs it would have even more of them.

My B8 was an early one, with the 2G nav. I know I could have got a slightly new 09 model and it would have had 3G etc. You do need to get 3G plus like mine for the proper useful bells and whistles although there are companies that say they can get the 3G plus functionality onto 3G nav units....

[Delboy]

Great right up Ian,

Would love to have all that bells and whistles to play with.

So in a few months when the novelty has worn off and you move on to your next purchase / review perhaps you could sell me the 7

[tintin]

Originally Posted by IT

And this is the one achillies heel of the A7, and I noted it was reporting in press snippets before I bought this one - It has some fantastic tech available, but is almost all optional and mucho extra wonga. Im sure the same could probably be said for the D4 mindst....

And that's the advantage of picking these up second hand…option prices new don't count for much used, seems like you chose well