Audi A7 Sportback Executive SE 3.0 TDI Quattro Automatic

My pre-New Year resolution, for action over the Christmas holidays, was to expand my knowledge of the Audi A7’s controls and features with an in-depth study of the 253-page owner’s manual. I’ve suffered some minor irritations regarding the car that were mostly down to my ignorance of its inner workings, which is not a fair way to make judgements and evaluations of a car’s user-friendliness, although one has a right to expect some things to be fairly intuitive.

So I’m now going to highlight some of the notable discoveries that I made. Under “rev counter”, the handbook says “you should select a lower gear if the engine speed drops below 1,500rpm.” But the S tronic transmission of the A7 frequently selects ratios that set its engine speed significantly below 1,500rpm. Should I be selecting a lower gear using the manual override facility? I somehow think not. “Checking the oil level” notes that “oil consumption is likely to be higher for the first 5,000km, and that the engine oil level must be checked at regular intervals.” An oil level warning light will be displayed “if the oil is too low,” which is surely cutting it a bit fine, particularly if you’ve no top-up oil on board? But I then discovered, after failing to find any dipstick, that there’s a complex six step method of checking the oil level via the infotainment system, which should be done at regular intervals thus suggesting that I should have done this several times before now! Then I discovered under “warning/indicator lamps” a heading “engine warm-up request” saying that, when displayed, “fuel has entered the engine oil due to low outside temperatures or frequent short trips. Drive until the engine is warm to allow the fuel to evaporate out of the engine oil.” Gulp! I hope that I don’t see that particular light come on.

Moving on, there’s a short note regarding “power-close function on doors” of which I’ve been aware, and it’s a very nice touch indeed; “just push the door gently so that it falls into the latch. The door will now close automatically.” Note to self “must stop instinctively slamming doors, as I have been, and as one does with more humble cars.” I’ll close lesson one now and move onto a brief update on actually driving the superb A7 Sportback, after a reminder to myself to check the volume setting of the front parking sensors, which are barely audible at present.

Then maybe I’ll just revert to behaving like any typical ignorant owner/driver, and muddle my way through the rest of my time with the Sportback, instead of diluting the experience with too much knowledge! The car is going very well indeed, and pleasing me and my passengers greatly, although I’ve stayed pretty local the last few weeks, and the fuel economy has slipped a little. But then so has the price of fuel, and I’m probably travelling at a fuel cost of around 12p a mile, which isn’t too bad for such a classy and powerful machine! The A7 itself has certainly not slipped at all though, and its quattro all-wheel-drive system appears to deliver exemplary stability in wet and cold winter conditions, even on its summer tyres.