Soft close doors

[Billythebass]

Hi there, I’m picking up my S8 tomorrow and wondered how I can tell if it has soft close doors. This function didn’t seem to operate when I drove the car and it’s not a deal breaker in any way and the salesman from the non-Audi garage didn’t know. It would be nice to know in case it needs fixing or activating? Thanks for reading. 

[Steve Q]

I think it's an automatic function. If it wasn't working then I suspect it would be working on some doors and not others. Let's face it, it's one less thing to go wrong. Hope you're happy with your a8🙂

[Meow]

This is an interesting topic to me as I might be buying an A8, on which there will be a good chance of their being soft close doors fitted.

As purely a personal car, fine but as a taxi hmm, I wonder. In non-so-equipped cars, people often close the door poorly but immediately notice and proceed to try again. If not being used to soft close doors they misinterpret this as their failure to properly close the door, would not the grab for a second attempt work against the mechanism which by then is trying to perform its operation ?  A thing like soft closing doors is asking for repair trouble anyway but perhaps made all the more likely by passengers who innocently may fight against the mechanism thinking they simply haven't shut the door correctly. 

Am I wrong ?

Another problem I see is danger of crushing. From a quick Google about there have been such cases and law suits following ( BMW got mentioned a few times ). This is obviously a problem in a taxi given the extended risk arising from the numbers of passengers involved and most not being aware of the nature of the doors. I don't fancy warning every time they get out and while I could put up notices in reality most would not read .

So my questions :

- Can the feature be disabled in software ?

- Is the Audi version a safe one that stops closing if the slightest thing is obstructing ?

- Is the Audi system one that immediately stops working if the handle is pulled on again ( my earlier scenario described ) or conversely will door and passenger action end up fighting, possibly leading to damage ?

While the cost of repair is no doubt not small ( A8 ) its even worse as a taxi considering you are probably off the road until you can get it fixed ( revenue stops, costs continue )

 

[Steve Q]

I think it's an option, so you'd be best going for a car that doesn't have it in my opinion

[Meow]

A lot of them will have it and of course what whittles down your list besides ( age, miles, wheels, colour ) will leave you with only a few to choose from in reality.

Therefore I rely more on being able to disable function through a setting. I must find out somehow. Perhaps a dealer service dept would know.

[Stevey Y]

On 5/17/2021 at 10:02 AM, Meow said:

A lot of them will have it and of course what whittles down your list besides ( age, miles, wheels, colour ) will leave you with only a few to choose from in reality.

Therefore I rely more on being able to disable function through a setting. I must find out somehow. Perhaps a dealer service dept would know.

Why would you buy an A8 for a cab, unless you do a lot of airport work with civilised customers the usual drunks will kick it to pieces they have had a go at my entry level Avant but the upside is my mate owns a VAG breakers.

Steve.

[Meow]

Negatives are :

- Size in some tight roads/circumstances

- Inevitable high repair bills somewhere along the line

Guiding reasons :

- Raging tinnitus plagues me and to my relief the A8 will be really quiet. Alternative luxury barges are rear wheel drive, which isn't practical for year round safety where I live.

- Hear people better, especially if masks and screens are to continue or return. Noisy cars are a problem for me to the extent that I have become prepared to bear the cost.

Disrespecting the driver and vehicle :

This can happen in anything. Being off the road normally loses the same revenues.  The only differences are if it happens it is extra hurtful emotionally that this could happen to such a lovely motor and of course costs a bit more like if a knob were to be knocked off or something. Its actually not as common as you might think. I actually think people, even most arseholes, have a kind of respect for a decent car to be taken in rather than some contemptible bucket that charges the same fare. Seriously, I do think its a thing and also you're perhaps not seen as such a  'loser' who can be disrespected. I don't know, its just a gut assessment, though not at all what guides me to choose a luxury class car. Acoustics do.

The damage through having soft close doors :

Is something that would be accidental, in scenarios as I described. Disabling the function would avoid it. Thinking practically about what people normally do with doors and the fact they aren't to know about soft close like say a family member, I figured I should look into heading off problems with it, IF I can.

Choice of A8 is unusual but remember everything in the game is individual and what works for you. I hope an A8 will make doing it much more palatable, that I may do more of it. A6 is ten times more common in terms of Audi and even then the A6 and E Class are among the higher end in themselves. So yes, its quite odd to find an A8 outside of "exec hires".

By the way, if people cause me trouble I simply pull their arms and legs off, leaving them a torso by the side of the road.

[Stevey Y]

Hi, your licensing officers must be very understanding, my mate has a Mercedes estate and had a run in last year with a drunk with a broken bottle who did not want to pay the fare, in the drunks opinion why should he give the driver seven quid when the driver could obviously afford a car like that, the end of it was my mate flattened the bottle man and stayed put until the police arrived, guess who got nicked and guess who got the five star treatment in an ambulance, my mate got suspended for six months right at the start of the lockdown, no great loss for three months, I have also owned three contemptible buckets  and covered over 800,000 miles between the the three of them, all Fords and must have gotten most of my more lucrative jobs with a bit of wit knowledge and good looks, not the bucket, and the one experience based con elusion is they have no real respect for cabs and when it comes to throwing up in them it won't matter if its a Dacia or a Maybach the end results the same.

Steve.

[Meow]

Leather is easier to wipe though. 😄  I hope the first time leather I'd get in an A8 is going to be easier.

!Removed! soaks into cloth. 😭  I've actually had more issues with bottom end than top end fluids / stink / oozing. But then I'm not a Saturday night on the rank kind of hard core driver. 

Since we're on the subject of people disrespecting cabs, another factor is how many people just assume it's the firm's vehicle !  One time, after spilling cider out of a broken bottle saved in a plastic bag wrapped around it ( the sheer cheapness of it ! ), she giggled at all the mess saying, oh don't tell the taxi company about it hahaha. God, the ignorance. I thought I'd explain that they don;t care but just sighed and didn't.  You know what its like I mean, and you seem to have done a lot more than me. 

[Stevey Y]

Hi thats why the A6 I have has leather, and yeah they do tend to think its the firms vehicle, this is how stupid it gets with the younger idiots a group of girls one night going Clacton from where I am based they were quoted by the company £100 when we got near the drop the one sitting next to me tells me I have to do the job for £50 or she would call the police and tell them I groped her, I told her that I didn't care and the firm had her credit card details so either way I was going to get my money, when I dropped them she stood outside the car screaming to anyone that was listening that I had assaulted her, of course the drunken knight in shining armour arrives and calls the police who were there in a jiffy, the bad news was that the whole episode was recorded on the CCTV in the cabin, her dad turns up all angry until he found out his daughter was about to get nicked for false accusation and bilking, he then brokers a deal with the officer who asked me if her dad gives you £200 cash will you drop the charges, I kept them sweating for five minutes and then agreed to it.

I after that came to the conclusion that they are all untrustworthy scum until otherwise advised, if you are going to get this car you will need CCTV as that proves any abuse or damage, they don't like it when they are caught out, other than that I hope your new car attracts the better clients from the area you work and I can vouch for the Audi durability.

Steve.

[Meow]

It won't get me any better clients other than my own if I choose to cultivate them - something I never bothered with before.

I liked your story, the moral of being, get yourself CCTV !  Young woman are potentially the worst of all. That and mental people, screw loose types. I have never got used to dealing with that.

Right, just got back from my trip and yes, I did buy it, so with car. Had a lovely convoluted trip back through some spectacular scenery. 

To update everyone on the imagined issues of soft close doors, well in practice the way they actually work, passengers' misunderstandings about them are moot, because if you do give them a shove they simply close with no soft closing trick involved  i.e. just like ordinary doors. Therefore there shouldn't be any misconstrued need to fight with them at all. Also the idea that you could get your fingers crushed seems on real word observation a very unlikely scenario.

There remains the notion that if they do go wrong then such a thing on an A8 will expensive. But then I'm sure headlamp bulbs and boot buttons are too.  But that aside, no issue. Certainly not the main one that I feared.

 

 

 

 

[Stevey Y]

I wish you well with your new cab and I hope it raises your income, I expect they use the same bulbs and boot buttons on a couple of other models so I can't see it being more expensive unless you mention A8 just get the part number and see what else it fits. Safe journeys mate.

Steve.

[Meow]

Thanks. What will raise my income really is me having a better, more consistent attitude to going out ! I get the fares the ststem allocates me ..... WHEN AND IF I'M OUT. But along those lines, having the much nicer working environment might encourage me into that, see. I sought out such a car with this in mind, to overcome my strong tendency to avoid doing it !  Beyond that, yes I could cultivate my own personal clientele and indeed, I might find myself being asked, now that I have an A8. That said, I think I made a mistake of not waiting for the right long wheelbase version to be available and I do think such requests would more likely arise out of my having the L version. That's one of the unexpected disappointments with my A8, that the rear legroom is not great if I at the same time give my fat guts lots of room. Onto the salads ......

[Stevey Y]

Hi I have to smile this job either makes you lazy or so money orientated that you get an early ticket to a pine box, I think the car will give you the boost you need and you only appreciate its extra features when you do things like I did the other day and lifted the bonnet on my mates Skoda Octavia, without the hydraulic assisters they do take some shifting I know what you are going through as there are times when you wish you could pull up take their money, smile politely and just pull away without them, I had a good day today first for a long time I got a Polish guy who was going some 50 miles and did not speak English, paid up front and did not utter a word the whole journey, my kind of job.

Steve.,

[Meow]

Mine : 

" Here, deliver this document folder 300 miles to that easy to find address with a wide parking space waiting for you. When you're there there's another job for you, to take back a little box to where you started. No particular rush. Oh we'll need you to repeat this every day, six days a week "

If that was reality I'd probably buy a fully automated S Class. Can't even be bothered to drive see. I'd rather just sit there watching cat videos and reading the Viz comic.