I bought an Audi A8L new in 2004. The Adaptive Cruise Control has never worked properly. After a variable period of time (1 minute to 1 hour), if the sensor does not "see" a car in front of it, the message "ACC Blocked" comes up and the system turns off. Not a problem in heavily traveled areas, but in Western Kansas, where you may not come up on another car for more than an hour, it is a definite problem.

After multiple trips back to our (ex) dealer, they finally told us the system was DESIGNED to do this, and could not be fixed!

Because of this, I have not bought another Audi since.
HOWEVER, I am considering buying a 2013 S8, IF this design defect has been fixed. Our new dealer thinks it has, but are somewhat less then certain about that.

Does anyone have experience in rural areas with the newer Audis, and has this design defect in the ACC been fixed?

Thanks

 

It seems like your old dealer had a hard time acknowledging the issue so I'd contact other dealers' tech reps and see what they say. You could even contact Audi directly but if they haven't had complaints they won't see this as an issue. That means it probably will act as you described on the new models.

Personally, I don't like adaptive cruise or that lane awareness radar. It screws with my radar detector.

Good luck.

 

I just got a new Audi S8 2013. The adaptive cruise control seems to work fine.
But over all the cruise control sucks. 2.5 mph increments. Come on.
Every time you set it, you have adjust the distance again.
It reminds me of GM cruise control from the 70s.
Audi engineers need to drive MB s distronic cruise control, it a dream compared to Audi's.