If engine compression is enough to slow it on declines then the lack of braking does not matter. The definitive test will be a long, steep incline where engine compression is overwhelmed by gravity. I plan to do that tomorrow. But I am quite sure the manual is wrong.
Cruise control doesn't work on hills?
Today I had to go down some steep hills while my cruise control was on and noticed that my Q3 didn't brake to maintain the set speed of 62. I had to use the brakes to keep it from just coasting down the hill. I have never had a vehicle do this! Is this the way it is supposed to work? I just have standard cruise control.
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And kinda fun too. You won't find this kind of discussion on other car forums..>This is cool...
Now I'm totally confused....
Picture this, my wife and I are driving side-by-side down I-5 in Oregon, she's in her Q3 and I'm in my Lexus and we each have our cruise control set at 60. As we crest a ridge and begin a moderate descent, and without touching the brakes or throttle, I begin to pull away in my Lexus as I reach 72mph while her Q3 gains 5mph to 65 before the interstate levels out and both cars return to their set speed.....her Q3 regaining 55 very smoothly, my Lexus not so much.
Obviously this was not a scientific survey as there may be a number of factors besides cruise control causing one car to accelerate more than the other during the descent…..BUT, my wife said she believed her Q3 was trying to maintain its preset 55, not by braking, but by a subtle shift in the automatic transmission.
Remember, my wife is not a car girl, and I’m not a car guy….so this is just antidotal information. Oh, and my Lexus is a hybrid, so it does not have the standard 6 or 8 speed transmission, but is a CVT….continuous variable transmission.
Picture this, my wife and I are driving side-by-side down I-5 in Oregon, she's in her Q3 and I'm in my Lexus and we each have our cruise control set at 60. As we crest a ridge and begin a moderate descent, and without touching the brakes or throttle, I begin to pull away in my Lexus as I reach 72mph while her Q3 gains 5mph to 65 before the interstate levels out and both cars return to their set speed.....her Q3 regaining 55 very smoothly, my Lexus not so much.
Obviously this was not a scientific survey as there may be a number of factors besides cruise control causing one car to accelerate more than the other during the descent…..BUT, my wife said she believed her Q3 was trying to maintain its preset 55, not by braking, but by a subtle shift in the automatic transmission.
Remember, my wife is not a car girl, and I’m not a car guy….so this is just antidotal information. Oh, and my Lexus is a hybrid, so it does not have the standard 6 or 8 speed transmission, but is a CVT….continuous variable transmission.
I have my Service Manager on the search for truth from Audi Canada, but get this... They tell me that
I await the discussion on why it will not ever brake.
BTW your wife's may have geared down to 5th gear, just a guess. But the manual does not say it changes gears, only that it backs off the gas. Your car is much more efficient in its use of gravity!
even though I told them mine does not brake.the cruise control is operating as designed and that this is a normal feature of the cruise control
I await the discussion on why it will not ever brake.
BTW your wife's may have geared down to 5th gear, just a guess. But the manual does not say it changes gears, only that it backs off the gas. Your car is much more efficient in its use of gravity!
If engine compression is enough to slow it on declines then the lack of braking does not matter. The definitive test will be a long, steep incline where engine compression is overwhelmed by gravity. I plan to do that tomorrow. But I am quite sure the manual is wrong.
Well, after 6 weeks of taking my Q3 down the mountain using the shift paddles to try to avoid wearing out my brakes I find that the engine compression doesn't brake the vehicle as much as the engine does in my BMW 535xi 6 speed auto so I'm not sure that engine compression alone will have a significant impact on the Q3 in cruise control. I can't really test the cruise control going down the mountain because there are too many turns and hairpins to negotiate. On the hairpins in the BMW 2nd works great for braking while I have to go to 1st with the Q3.
I had a nice trip to Charleston and used my cruise control. It actually worked VERY well, but I can't say I had significantly steep or long downhill grades to contend with. That being said, I read my manual and noticed the same stuff referred to above. I am now wondering if there really is a braking action integrated into the system that I was unaware of.
I will check with my tech tomorrow on this and post back afterwards. Meanwhile though I can report that MY car seemed to behave very well under cruise (+/- 2 mph) at 84 mph (and 27,8 mpg) with SprintBooster on red.
I will check with my tech tomorrow on this and post back afterwards. Meanwhile though I can report that MY car seemed to behave very well under cruise (+/- 2 mph) at 84 mph (and 27,8 mpg) with SprintBooster on red.
My dealer says the foreman of his service dept is going to some sort of meeting and will bring up the issue. I've had my Q3 for 6 months and never noticed this until I had to take a 50 mile trip along country roads to see my podiatrist after bunion surgery. I asked my husband if he noticed it when driving me to or home from surgery but he doesn't remember. Most of the time I drive around town and never use cruise.
This might be a little quirk but since this is my first Audi in many years (early 70's!) I am thinking I will look long and hard at my next vehicle--I already have found the lack of memory settings for the seats and no built in garage door opener a bit of a pain.
And just in case you are wondering about my experience, I have driven everything from a Boss 302 Mustang to several BMWs, Mercedes, and trucks.
This might be a little quirk but since this is my first Audi in many years (early 70's!) I am thinking I will look long and hard at my next vehicle--I already have found the lack of memory settings for the seats and no built in garage door opener a bit of a pain.
And just in case you are wondering about my experience, I have driven everything from a Boss 302 Mustang to several BMWs, Mercedes, and trucks.
I'm getting the runaround. Dealer says call Audi, Audi says call the dealer. Can you believe Audi Canada customer service has no access to manuals? A complete dead end.
Quick update... I had a call back from Audi Canada and she said that several people were looking at the issue. She has no timeline for resolution but felt she could update me in a week.
Keep up the pressure on your dealer to contact Audi if you are wanting the feature to work as described.
Keep up the pressure on your dealer to contact Audi if you are wanting the feature to work as described.
We contacted Audi customer care and have spoken to them twice. They said they would look into it and get back to us. When we received a second call they wanted me to bring the vehicle to the dealer so someone could drive it. We told them that the Q3s at the dealer were doing the same thing and mine was not unique. So now a second "customer care" guy is going to "look into it". We are now waiting for our third call.
I had a nice trip to Charleston and used my cruise control. It actually worked VERY well, but I can't say I had significantly steep or long downhill grades to contend with. That being said, I read my manual and noticed the same stuff referred to above. I am now wondering if there really is a braking action integrated into the system that I was unaware of.
I will check with my tech tomorrow on this and post back afterwards. Meanwhile though I can report that MY car seemed to behave very well under cruise (+/- 2 mph) at 84 mph (and 27,8 mpg) with SprintBooster on red.
Roger:
Did your area tech get back to you on this? I'm preparing for an 800 mile roundtrip with some long up and down mountain routes so I'll see what I experience.
Rokut
I'm interested to find out what you learn, but I can't say I'm all that surprised the Q3 isn't applying the brakes or using engine compression (braking) as a means to slow the vehicle. With all of the new fuel economy standards being put into place car companies are being clever about making their vehicles coast longer to increase fuel economy. Automatic transmissions have evolved a lot in the past few years and some are even decoupling when the pressure is released from the accelerator pedal in an effort to reduce parasitic loss. I don't know if the Q3 does that but it wouldn't be shocking if there was a coast feature built in where when the transmission senses the torque is no longer needed as in going down a hill...
But the issue is the manual states what it should do. Maybe part of Dieselgate though.
No news from Area Tech yet (plus I've been out of the country for 10 days), but in my dialog with techs, found no one who could explain the way the manual was written (2016s do NOT have the same text, so my guess is that the revision was to fix this bad reference.) Other Audi systems most notably Pre-Sense and Adaptive Cruise DO use the brakes to control approach speeds to other cars, objects etc. and could use them to "maintain" cruise speed too, but as noted above, that's hardly an efficiency game unless the speed differential gets very wide (~20% or so) for safety's sake, and then hill descent could (if switched on) work. So my almost final opinion is that there is no adaptive braking standardly (nor optionally either really) available on the Q3's cruise control.
Lastly, this kind of typo or bad translation (could be) is hardly a comparison for inclusion in Dieselgate IMHO ...
Lastly, this kind of typo or bad translation (could be) is hardly a comparison for inclusion in Dieselgate IMHO ...
Audi Canada today confirmed by phone the manual describes a feature that is not on the car. Further, she stated there is still discussion on what to do, if anything. I suggested a letter go out within a month to all owners. Who knows what they will do now.
I should have added a smiley after the dieselgate reference. Of course they are not related, unless going forward they fail to advise owners of what is arguably a potential safety issue.
Since hill descent mode uses braking to maintain a maximum speed, I wonder what other physical components are needed to implement the same control at cruising speeds.
I should have added a smiley after the dieselgate reference. Of course they are not related, unless going forward they fail to advise owners of what is arguably a potential safety issue.
Since hill descent mode uses braking to maintain a maximum speed, I wonder what other physical components are needed to implement the same control at cruising speeds.
Prolly not much really - perhaps a bit more coding - but the real bottom line is they have a disclaimer in the manual for typos and such as this - and really, since 95% of ALL other cruise controls do NOT use the brakes, it could hardly be considered a safety fault worthy of mass hysteria or recall or even a note to all owners imho...
Oh I am sure that is the corporate take on it. Whereas I think quality extends beyond the four wheels to the entire ownership experience....snip..., it could hardly be considered a safety fault worthy of mass hysteria or recall or even a note to all owners imho...
Makes one wonder how they can be writing manuals for self driving cars one day, I guess they will have to be more careful. Or have bigger disclaimers and better lawyers.
Audi customer care has called us again and said "blah blah blah!" If someone had just said that this is the way the cruise control works I would have been much happier. Quite frankly I don't know how you can tell me that the some of the Q3 vehicles have different standard cruise control systems than others!!! I am convinced that none of these people know what they are talking about! So. after some thought about my previous cars, I like the size and utility of the Q3, but NO seat memory, NO garage door opener, and now this quirk! Sorry all you Audi lovers out there. Back to BMW and Mercedes next time around!
You knew all this (me too btw - although I got the HomeLink) except for perhaps the cruise control thing, so why did you even buy the car? Still hope you enjoy it in a positive way otherwise enjoy your next BMW or Merc then ...
I did not know about the garage door opener until we got the vehicle home after our salesperson said we had to be at home to program it and then discovered that it didn't exist! The seat memory did not seem like a big thing until these other things popped up. I am probably being overly critical right now because of all the bull**** that has come our way.
And as I was just about to post this I saw something about the license plate! We had to go back to the dealer so the front grill could be switched out and then the holes did not even come close to matching up!
And as I was just about to post this I saw something about the license plate! We had to go back to the dealer so the front grill could be switched out and then the holes did not even come close to matching up!
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