salvadorik

You may already know this but I want to give you heads up in case you are thinking about buying $450 prepaid plan.

My C7 is being repurchased back by AOA and I no longer need T-Mobile plan. I purchased the plan two months ago. I called Audi Connect and they said that I will not get my money back when I return my car to Audi. So basically I am paying $450 for 2.5 months. Well so much for getting a good deal. The plan cannot be cancelled and refunded. It can only be transferred but if you are not getting another Audi then bad luck.

snagitseven

Yup, somewhat like mobile tel contracts where the part of the lowered cost (in this case the 30 month plan rather than the product itself) is subsidized (likely by botth Audi and T-Mobile), there are no partial refunds. It's stated in the Audi Connect Agreement in section #4. https://www.myaudiconnect.com/File/TC
It does seem it may be possible to transfer a subscription to another party with their "permission". (I'm guessing for the same car). Of course, this wouldn't apply in a buy-back.

Mike_L

Thats exactly why I'm doing month to month. I don't keep cars long, and most likely I'm going back to BMW once I'm no longer upside down on the A6, so no sense in paying up front for something I'm not gonna use.

Richard Solomon

Am I correct in thinking you can take that SIM card and use it in another device? If so, at least you could pop it in a WiFi hotspot or something and get some use out of your $450. I'm just coming up to speed again on modern Audis but the plan seems to be a pretty basic unlimited data plan - so I wonder if T-Mobile has gone to the trouble to lock the SIM to a particular IMEI or IMEI subset (e.g. only "Audi" devices).

If I were you I would try and keep the SIM card upon vehicle return. If nothing else, maybe it can be used by someone else here and you could get some of your $ back that way.

Best of luck - BTDT on the buyback thing, but I took a replacement car instead.

Maverick61

All the more reason people should at least consider the Truphone or Ptel prepaid options

salvadorik

Thanks for your advice. I am currently working with Audi Connect and they are possibly making an exception for me. They asked me to provide them with proof of buyback. I may get refunded. Lets see what happens.

As far as the replacement, I gave it a serious thought but my bad experience with Audi (only reliability part of it) is stirring me away from this brand. Don't get me wrong, the power train, the materials used, the interior layout, MMI, exterior style and much more are phenomenal in this car. It just that mere thought of all electrical nightmare possibly coming back with another Audi scares me off. That is why I am leaning toward Lexus at this time. Well maybe in the future if I get bored with Lexus I will switch back to Audi. For now, lets hope that this brand will continue improving the reliability of it vehicles.

1st Time Audi

Why can't the card be transferred? It's like a prepaid account right now.

Are you getting a new Audi? I don't see why you can't use that card in the new car.

If interested, I might buy it from you. PM me if interested

feralc

If you can use a truphone or ATT or any other options I am sure you can use the same sim in another car, only problem is because the sim is attached to your vin number the new owner of the car cannot get Audi connect until the deactivate your sim , but what do you care, that's Audi problem now

Richard Solomon

Well, I believe the old Kindles and Nooks with 3G service used SIM cards which were somehow locked to the IMEI of the device - or to the family of IMEIs used by the devices, so I don't know if that's true of the Audi/T-Mobile SIM or not. I would *think* the SIM would work in another Audi but even there it's theoretically possible that the SIM would have locked itself to the specific MMI unit's IMEI. (Seems pretty unlikely as it would be another hassle when replacing head units, but I just don't know.)

That's an interesting point - when switching to Truphone or one of the other SIMs does one have to tell Audi Connect anything at all? I perhaps foolishly assumed the subscription was between the MMI/car and Audi Connect with the network transport being basically invisible. I.e. I was assuming that one could switch SIMs all day long and never have to change the Audi Connect subscription since a SIM just let the MMI communicate with Audi Connect's servers.

snagitseven

Audi Connect on it's own is not tied to directly to a particular provider including directly with T-Mobile. This is why a sim from Truphone or P-Tel will work fine using T-Mobile's network. Even an AT&T sim from another device will work (however, it might need an sim adapter and will only work at 2G speeds).

A T-Mobile sim that came with the car might be a different issue but I seem to remember an Audi tech taking my sim on the free trial and using it successfully in another car in the showroom when we were doing some trouble shooting last year on a myAudi transfer issue (turned out to be a myAudi account snafu and not the car or the card).

I'm going to hazard a guess that a T-Mobile sim is not tied to a specific car like a sim card from one of the other providers unless there is a prepaid T-=Mobile subscription. In which case, the sim used for the 30 month T-Mobile account, may be tied to a particular car (my VIN shows on my T-Mobile subscription account info) which would require an account change from T-Mobile to another vehicle.