In-car Electronics
CD or DVD players, radio, speakers, GPS, communication system (e.g., OnStar), display screen freezes or goes blank, phone pairing (e.g. Bluetooth), voice control commands, steering wheel controls, portable music device interface (e.g., iPod/MP3 player), backup or other camera/sensors.
What Owners Say
"The car often displays a message that it no device is connected, even though my iPhone is plugged in and shows it is in carplay mode"
Alexander P., OH (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Apple car play constantly drops your phone so in order to use it you have to go through the procoess of unpairing your Iphone and then go through the process of pairing it again and resetting up apple car play, royal pain in the ass"
Anonymous, ON (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Stopped working. May have something to do with iPhone update. Called Audi and they never replied but Covid is happening"
Anonymous, TX (2018 Audi Q5 Unsure 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"While backing up, occasionally the car would assume that I'm about to hit an object and would react by locking my brakes in place. I am able to proceed backing up right after this happens, but it's not a pleasant experience and it is something I'm going to address with the manufacture after the stay at home orders are lifted."
Anonymous, NV (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Picture is distorted. Very hard to judge distances"
Anonymous, (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Perhaps this is not actually the backup parking camera. It has to do with the car's automatic gate opener button. It does not work when backing the car out of driveway, whereas it does work when pulling in. The dealer said this was a flaw that they were unable to fix."
Anonymous, (2018 Audi Q5 Unsure)"Front end sensor malfunctioned causing the audible in-car warnings (beeps) to go off repetitively and frequently, even when the car was stopped."
Janice B., MO (2018 Audi Q5 SQ5)"Badly designed in glove compartment - must park car to change CDs."
Anonymous, CA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Display screen goes completely black and shows white letter jibberish (letters don't make sense or words). This has happened 3 times in the 6 months I've owned the car; 1 when I went to start the car, and 2 times while I was driving it (1 time I was playing the radio)."
Janice B., MO (2018 Audi Q5 SQ5)"Brought the car to the dealer several times, & they look at it & say nothing is wrong but my 2014 Q5 did never had the display screen x the route maps go black in daylight"
Anonymous, MD (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Not only the display goes blank but all electronics shutoff. System goes through a complete reboot just like when first starting the car. Only problem is I am hurling down the road at speed when all systems reboot."
Anonymous, MO (2018 Audi Q5 SQ5 3.0-L 6 Cyl turbo)"Seems as though this only happens in inclement or very cold weather.. Not sure why"
Anonymous, NY (2018 Audi Q5 SQ5)"Lots of problems - too many to describe here."
Amy W., OR (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"I can't play music form my iphone 4s as it is not supported. Rest of Infotainment system is poorly designed and not worth the money"
Anonymous, CA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Connects to my iPhone but the display doesn't pop up and when I select it in the menu it still doesn't work. I usually have to plug unplug and plug the phone in a few times before it works. Also when using the phone the bluetooth connection interferes with the iphone connection and I cant hear the person I am talking to so I ususally disconnect the phone and just use bluetooth"
Anonymous, NY (2018 Audi Q5 SQ5)"System cannot understand vocal destinations"
Anonymous, MA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Did not give me the most direct route and consistently gave VERY poor directions."
Anonymous, NY (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"The MMI is annoying the touch pad doesn't recognize the difference between a 1 an I or an l Try entering an address with any of those letters or numbers in it and you guaranteed to get lost or extremely frustrated. Best is to just use a garmin or your phone as your navigation system because this thing couldn't navigate it's way out of a wet paper bag. Toatal crap!"
Anonymous, ON (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"The GPS is very hard to work so I never use it. I use google maps instead."
Anonymous, MD (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"prone to glitches, doesn't operate as designed. Voice command no longer functions"
Anonymous, WA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"The interface is complex and difficult to master. When I need to know where I'm going, I just use my iPhone and Siri, even though MOST of the time, if I knew how to request a destination the Audi would display my progress with a gorgeous Google Maps display (Google Maps comes and goes inexplicably. My related issue is that we've never been able to figure out how to get the car to function as a mobile internet hotspot"
James R., CA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Not able to access off grid addresses that my iPhone can find with no problem. Poor traffic control that my iPhone can direct me around. Could not direct me to a school one mile away. As this is a cloud based GPS it should be fixable."
Rachel R., CA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"System just does not work. It does not recognize my voice. It does not have the smarts to recognize where it is and local landmarks close by. In Florida, it gives suggestions in Ontario and Quebec. Driving in Albany NY, in city proper it came up with Albanei - no recognition! My friends have same problem when tried my car. I try their Acura and BMW with no problems. I've had to resort to using my cell phone for directions which has no issues with my voice and promptly provides route guidance. EVERY THING ELSE with car is FANTASTIC. Audi GPS sucks. Audi needs to license from someone who knows what they are doing. Audi suggests if voice recognition doesn't work, stop over on side of road and either punch in text character by character OR hand draw character by character your destination. This is in the same section that if the car stops for any reason, do a Fred Flinstone and push forward with your feet. This GPS non function IS a major issue with me!"
Anonymous, QC (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"After pairing with my Verizon LG flip-phone successfully for 2 months it stopped pairing and I've been unable to reconnect it, and the dealer so far is unable to fix it. The car won't pair with a Bluetooth earpiece either. For a while the car even prevented me from using my phone as a hand-held phone, though currently I can use it with a wired earpiece."
D M., NY (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"When car is started radio does not default to Preset radio stations. It defaults to whatever band was on at the time of shut down. IE: If FM was playing radio defaults to FM. If Sirius was playing it defaults to Sirius. I have to navigate to Presets every time I start the car. Very, very annoying."
Michael T., MA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"The radio comes on at will. Turn it off - then it may come back on. Dealer could not find the problem more than once."
Anonymous, FL (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"not a failure problem but an annoying problem. radio reverts to last station chosen, and preset stations are multi-clicks to reset."
Anonymous, FL (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"no AM reception"
Anonymous, PA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"When radio buttons are selected often times the station will either not change or will not go to the correct station. Audi seems unable to fix it."
Rachel R., CA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"After locking the car there were a number of times when I returned to find the back lid had flipped open. At my last service (10K miles) they said a software update would fix it. It has NOT - it happened again last week. This could easily lead to theft of items from the vehicle."
Anonymous, NY (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Check engine light came on. Software fix."
Anonymous, NJ (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"It just doesn't learn to understand our voices"
Anonymous, FL (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"Poor understanding of what I say. Often have to repeat command. System oftentimes never gets what I am asking for."
Anonymous, (2018 Audi Q5 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"User interface to navigation, phone, radio is poor including voice controls. Touch pad entry is worthless. No way to easily enter a destination address. Monitor stick out of dash is esthetically poor"
Anonymous, NY (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)"The voice activation for inputting an address states it's inactive, to this date Audi has not been able to repair it. Google maps turns itself off, a lot of digging through options & the manual nor the help line are of little use. The GUI is not intuitive."
Anonymous, WA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)
"Below are a mix of the issues/functional limitations I have experienced with Android Auto: 1) Audi doesn't use touch screens and Android Auto is touch screen-centric. You can still use it, but it is less efficient and more distracting. 2) The OK Google wake command suddenly stopped working on demand. I've tried everything twice to get it back. I have to manually select the microphone to get it to work. 3) If your a podcast user, it's terrible, the only way to get to podcasts in, for example, Spotify, is to use your phone directly. Podcasts do not even show up in the interface 4) Voice commands are terrible. If you want to play a personal playlist, you can't do it. Although the materials imply you can. If you say, play playlist My songs it will try to open a song called My Songs or do a playlist for a band called My Songs"
Christopher R., WA (2018 Audi Q5 2.0T 2.0-L 4 Cyl turbo)