A5 B9.5 noob here ;-)

[DarthMuppet]

Hi everyone, just snagged an ex-demo 5k miles 2024 B9.5 A5 in Navarra blue (internal colour is black / black-black / black / black.....guess it's black then), and I have some questions about it. I have spent hours searching for answers to them, but most of the answers I can see are not for my model, refering to menu items that don't exist and the like. I should say that I am assuiming it is a B9.5, as it was registered in October 2024

First off, love the car - 2.0TDi quattro, with the tech pack, audio is excellent, very much on a par with the HK system in my previous car, a Cooper SD (I like diesels). The Mini was fun, but noisy and with a harsh ride mainly down to its run-flats. I'm old(ish) now, and i can live without the bumps and backache. The A5 is a different world - quiet, smooth, comfortable, spacious, luxurious. 43mpg so far, which is pretty good I think (although i've only covered about 200 miles), £600 road tax was a bit of a shock if i'm honest, but I am certainly going to enjoy it. Now to my questions

Lane Assist - how do I make it stay off? The manual says 'it will return to a standard setting when you start the engine'. clearly that standard setting is 'on' in the UK, is there any way I can chagne that to off?  Same question to the speed limit audio warning - that won't stay off either. some numpty had rotated a sign at the 40 / 60 boundary, and as i entered what I know to be a NSL, the car read the '40' sign and annoyed me until it got bored. I am quite happy to go buy a gadget and get my hands dirty if that is necessary. I'd also like it to apply the handbrake automatically if I press park, but as i've been trying to see which apps do what, they want me to buy it first, and send it back if i don't like it. That helps nobody, but I can understand why they do it.

Oil. it is drinking it. myAudi told me to check the oil when I set it all up, and it was below minimum when I got it home from collecting it (90 miles or so). Sterm words were had with the dealer who tried to convince me that the pre-delivery check only reads 'OK' or Low', despite me sending a picure of the actual guage from MMI. I filled it up, using the litre the dealer had put in the boot, and it has already dropped from the very top to about 10% down the bar in the 100 miles since then.  Seems nuts to me - I have only owned two cars myself, but my wife has had a few, and I had a dozen or more company cars. I can honestly say that i have never had to top up the oil in any of them. I have checked regularly, but never needed a topup in about half a million driven miles. Should I be expecting this, or should I be rejecting the car? It is 4 months old. a warning did come up at one point, bsaically saying 'you need to top it up, but you can keep driving' so i'm comfortable that i've nt damaged it.

Battery - is that really the main battery, in the boot? I'm into my cars, not all cars, so this revelation may well have passed me by. Nowt wrong with it, just a bit surprised. Sales guy told me it was the mild hybrid L-Ion battery. Didn't have the heart to point out that it said Pb on it.

I do not have the convenience key. Is keyless entry something I can switch on with the above-mentioned gadget at all? Research so far says not,  no real clue though. I've never had it, so I'm not missing it.

Should I be trying to the the iPhone Audi Connect app, or is it just myAudi for my car?

The Phone Box. Honestly, it's a great idea, but my iPhone doesn't like it. The camera bump means it's not flat, it charged about 8% in the 2 hr drive home, and got very hot. This is my fix (it's all stuck down obvs)

I plan to 3d-print some guides to sit in the box to make the handset sit in the correct place, but for now I just push it to the front left corner.

Last but not least, the longest one, and the one that I have had the most confusion with due to conflicting information for different models and seemingly countries too. Wi-fi. I want the car to use my phone for all data when I am in the car and they are linked. Ideally, i'd like to connect it to my home wi-fi if possible too so when it is doing whatever it was doing to use 14.58MB at 02:17 this morning, it can do it for free. I use CarPlay for Waze and Spotify so the phone is already connected via wifi to MMI (well, I think that's how it works, honestly not sure, but however it is done, it does work). I have no SIM slot that I can find, nor does the manual suggest I have one. it *does* say though that 'depending on the country and the vehicle's equipment, an Internet connection can be established via the embedded SIM card (eSIM) of via your own mobile phone's SIM card using Wi-Fi'.  How do I know if I have the correct equipment to do this? I'm in the UK, and I can see the list of equipment in the myAudi app, just not sure what to look for. There is no Wi-Fi menu in the MMI, something I have seen that I should be looking for. I have taken the 3GB free data from cubic telecom, but I have no idea what I get from it (used 250MB since the day I got it), or what I would lose by stopping it, or if anything started working after i signed up. The manual is written for non-technical users, but i need the 'why' as well as the 'what' to understand what is going on. Ideally, i'd like to connect it to my home wi-fi if possible too.

A final thought.  I am ecstatic that I have a paper manual. The Minis (I've had two) were annoying, as the manual was in the onboard platform only, and you can only read it when it's stationary, even if you have a passenger doing the work for you. Awesome to have paper again. My suggestion for VAG though is to provide each vehicle with a customised electronic manual just for my exact car as manufactured. They know what is in the bill of materials, and it would be trivial to build a user guide in the same way. That way, all of the the 'if your vehicle is equipped with blah-blah you can do this' issues go away, and if it's not in the book, you can't do it.

Any help on any of the above questions would be most appreciated. Think i'm going to go for a drive now.

TIA

DM

 

 

[icstm]

Enjoy your late night drive!

(you have have a nice route?)

I'll try and remember to come and reply to some of these in the morning

[spartacus 68]

The £600 road tax is probably related to the car being worth over £40k new, plus of course it's a diesel. From what I can see the 2.0TDI quattro (204PS) on a new A5 is somewhere in the region of 140-137 g/km CO2. Not sure if that tax eventually reduces?

Oil, this is a pretty new car, so I'd expect that oil figure to stabilise. Not even sure if it has a dipstick. Audi like to have this on the MMI. Keep an eye on it, but as the engine beds in, then in my experience, it won't drink at all. Not sure if your car came with a services thrown in (usually if you buy on finance), but typical Audi - then they'll be changing your oil at approximately 18k miles which is fine of you plan to keep the car for 3 years or so, but if it's a keeper, then this will eventually kill the engine with premature wear. Personally, I'd be doing oil and filter changes every 8-10k miles.

Battery should be in the boot. 

Active lane assist - to switch off, there should be a button at the end of the indicator stalk, hold for 5 seconds and the assist green lane disappear on the dash.

[DarthMuppet]

10 hours ago, icstm said:

Enjoy your late night drive!

(you have have a nice route?)

I'll try and remember to come and reply to some of these in the morning

I have a problem where I live, a lot of open countryside with a lot of arable farming means a lot of subsiding roads, so the twistry stuff is unfortunately in some cases dangerously bumpy. I though i'd go somewhere new last night, and it was pretty attrocious - the Mini would have been awful, the A5 lapped it up 🙂

[DarthMuppet]

1 hour ago, spartacus 68 said:

The £600 road tax is probably related to the car being worth over £40k new, plus of course it's a diesel. From what I can see the 2.0TDI quattro (204PS) on a new A5 is somewhere in the region of 140-137 g/km CO2. Not sure if that tax eventually reduces?

Oil, this is a pretty new car, so I'd expect that oil figure to stabilise. Not even sure if it has a dipstick. Audi like to have this on the MMI. Keep an eye on it, but as the engine beds in, then in my experience, it won't drink at all. Not sure if your car came with a services thrown in (usually if you buy on finance), but typical Audi - then they'll be changing your oil at approximately 18k miles which is fine of you plan to keep the car for 3 years or so, but if it's a keeper, then this will eventually kill the engine with premature wear. Personally, I'd be doing oil and filter changes every 8-10k miles.

Battery should be in the boot. 

Active lane assist - to switch off, there should be a button at the end of the indicator stalk, hold for 5 seconds and the assist green lane disappear on the dash.

Yes, new it was £52k, and the tax is at £600 for 5 years. I knew the huuuuge 'new car' tax was a thing, but i didn't realise it was 5 years. 

Good news about the oil. I'll keep an eye on it. Expectation is that i'll keep it at least 10 years, but the whole 'no new petrol or diesel cars after 2030' position may change that. I paid cash for it, so no free servicing. They did try to convince me, and said I could pay it off any time without penalty, but the Ts & Cs left me entirely at their whim as far as interest goes - they add it on at the start, not based on the outstanding balance. 

The ALA does go off when I use that switch, just as it does in the MMI, but it always comes back on after the ignition is turned off and on again. I know I can avoid its actions by indicating, but i've driven reskinned BMWs for 12 years, it's going to be a hard habit to break.

Thanks