Joe Bloggins

I have a 2014 S4 lined up for late September delivery. My concern, after reading dozens of blogs and chats is still this notchy/wavering steering issue that seems to be present due apparently to the electromagnetic steering. I spent over two hours at my local dealer discussing this issue with both the service advisor whom I know personally and because of the fact that she is basically on the front lines when it comes to any complaints (so I trust her take on this). At one point she went and got the head techy who has been with this Audi dealer for over 20 years. He is suggesting all this talk about changing the steering rack will not help anything in this regard. He did state that wheels, rims, tires and you name it could all be contributing factors to what people are experiencing. When I first read about this issue I believed that this was Audi's first attempt at using this technology. He immediately stated that this technology for the B8 machines has been around since 2006 and used in the A3 with complete success. He agreed that this technology does feel and drive somewhat differently. They had a car in today in fact where the owner believed something was not right about his steering. They have given him a loaner while they continue to check out his vehicle. The techy also stated that they had already run all the diagnostics and that he took it for a drive on a variety of roads and felt nothing unusual. The issue around attempting to duplicate the scenario when the techies are present shouldn't matter because if there has been a failure at any time prior to the check, the diagnostic equipment has a built in data retrieval feature that brings back any previous failure of this component. They are, however going to continue to keep this gentleman's car while the customer drives the loaner. When he returns the loaner I will be driving this A4 all day to see if it exhibits these strange characteristics that are being played out in these blogs and chat lines. I have incidentally driven a 2013 S4 (brand new) for about an hour but the dealer did not want me to run up the miles thus I didn't really notice anything unusual but in fairness did not get to put it through its paces in any unusual driver situations. Certainly I will be taking this loaner in myriad driving conditions to ascertain whether the steering is an issue. Audi must know about the 1000's of concerns out there and for them to just ignore these concerns seems inappropriate to say the least. Particularly, when people are now throwing out the 'Lemon Law' scenario. Thinking about this situation it reminds me of the Apple Corporation who never admits to any flaw or defect in their product. i.e. battery issues etc., etc. Whenever I have made contact with them they always suggest that it's the first they've heard of such an issue. Utter nonsense of course! Fortunately even though I have a vehicle coming, if I choose not to get it my local dealer will just move it on to some other customer. I haven't even had to put any $$$$ down. Cheers, will be interested in hearing any other perspectives on this.
Joe

SparkieS4

One day I was driving mine and the steering felt notchy. Kind of felt like it had flat spots while cruising along at 100kph. I hated it and wanted to take it in........ then it went away and hasnt done it since.