chaff

Feel free to call BS all you like. Everyone can have your opinion. Audi however have decided the car is dangerous and are replacing it. I'm hardelly weak I'm a royal marine. I'm here to give you lot a warning that there is a potential issue to look out for.

The G Man

If this is the reason why you hesitant to order a C7, then you might as well ride a bike. Every car brand has its problem and every brand will have its share of lemons. It’s how the brand deal with the lemon that matters the most. Lexus is one of the most reliable brand in the industry, yet they make cars that is unsafe and cause unintentional acceleration. Years ago, I had a Toyota Avalon that did the same thing as the OP's A6, it would shut off by itself when driving.
I use to be a big Acura fan, but their engineering, quality and customer service have really gone downhill, at the same time, the price went way up. Some people don’t even consider them a luxury brand anymore.
If you think the Japanese have better QC than German, then you have been watching too much car commercials. It’s not the QC, it’s the new technologies that the German use. Japanese car makers tend to use older technology until all the bugs have been work out by somebody else. Then the Japanese would invest into making that old technology more reliable. If you look at the long term reliable reports, you will see that the reliability gap between the best and the worst have been getting smaller and smaller. The industry as a whole is making more reliable cars.

Helmar

IMHO, I think that this is a sterotype that isn't valid, and is a bit racist.

I've often heard just such comments that, in general, the Japanese are copiers, not innovators.

My 2000 Lexus LS430 pioneered adaptive cruise control and automatic parking.

The LS460 was the first vehile with 8 speed transmissions.

The LS600hL is one of the first cars with LED headlights, not to mention the first luxury hybrid.

I'm guessing that the introduction of new technology is spread around fairly evenly.

HBH

stoulana

I have 2012 C7 A6 now for a month and as mentioned by other posters all performance cars & are subject to failures given the complexity of engineering behind it. Unfortunately some failures may be more severe & could have not been caught early in development/test process or QC phase, this is due that triggers that cause failure were not known or multiple of them needed and was not thought of. I'm sure Audi will take this incident seriously as they did & engineering will be studying this case. Now we may not know outcome for marekting reasons. But I think the intent of original post is to alert us to watch for any early signs or similar symptoms. Now if one looks at BMW forums, Acura, Honda,MB....etc there will be issues reported varying in severity, I still own BMW 535i 2009 ,while many have suffered from fuel pump failures,my car has not, my point is with all those high performance cars that we chose because we love the way they drive & handle, there will be always a chance something was missed & subject to fail. That is the benefit of sharing cases in this forum & we all hope none of those similar issues ever occur again.

Taktix1

I'm going to assume that since Audi is replacing this car for him this definitely happened. I dont know why Audi would eat a 60k car if nothing was wrong with it. Good to hear that they are approaching it the right way though.

at1183

While that gap may be getting smaller, its still there. Acura is plenty a luxury brand. in fact, when comparing apples to apples, Acura is far superior than most in terms of what the car is equipped with, at what price. Honda (Acura) is considered the most reliable brand in the world...

The stereotype that Audi, MB, BMW are 'problematic' has truth to it. All cars are vulnerable to have serious issues, but its a more common problem with German Brand cars, because of the newer technology they use, that isn't always "bug-free". Acura may only use 5spd transmission, and no direct injection or forced induction, but I've put a total of 200k miles on 4 Acura TLs in about 5 years, with ZERO issues, and was never stranded on the side of the road

snagitseven

Please provide the statistics to back up your assertions that German cars have more serious issues than Japanese cars. All I recall reading about dangerous auto issues in 2011 were the problems had by Toyota/Lexus. I don't remember seeing any significant Audi safety issues published since the '80's.

chaff

To be fair to Audi they have handled the situation very well as as I would expect of a luxury brand. No arguments from me in terms of customer service, I guess this is the difference between a luxury brand and everyone else.

The G Man

I think what I am try to say is that the chances of getting a lemon German car is very slim. I am sure if you go into the Acura forums, there will be a few posters with lemon as well. I had 2 Acuras and 2 Honda before, they are very nice cars, reliable and full of options, but they are not as well built as the German cars. I do agree with you about German cars being more vulnerable to have issues because of the newer technology they use. Somebody has to put those new technologies on the road, if everybody plays it safe, then all we will have is a bunch of boring cars on the road with old technology.

dcmetro

I'd like to add my .02 to this discussion. With all the electronics and computers going in the car, I can't believe we can have a 100% perfect production process. Maybe 99.94 but not 100%. The most important thing should be how the car manufacturer handles the situation.
In my case, I did not have as scary experience as the OP did, but my 2010 A6 started showing up all warning lights-from ABS, brakes, parking, all faults. I did not cut off the engine and the car drove fine, but the lights did not go out at all. I gave it to the dealership several times (over 4) for the same issue and they kept the car for over 40-45 days, called all sorts of Audi Technicans from Germany, with little success.
Couple of months back, my service advisor suggested that I get in touch with AOA since these issues are not normal. I wrote a letter detailing the issues and 3 weeks later AOA offered to replace my car,not with a 2011 version but 2012!! I was pleasantly surprised. No arguments, no more explainations....they handled it perfectly.
I even took the opportunity to get all the features (Prestige, Sports) which I did not last time around. Course I did pay up some usage fees since my car had over 30K and for the upgrades.

I've had issues with my bimmer and BMW did take action without any issues. I've had issues with my MB SUV and surprisingly they gave me some pain with some issues. Maybe it was the dealership.

I think Audi just made me a very loyal customer. For a car that clearly had some serious issues, I could not have asked for a better end. So I sincerely think it's most important how the car manufacturer handles the issue, is what we should take into account as well while judging the cars.