Setting the clock in your A4?
 

Since we are turning our clocks back one hour this weekend, I got to thinking: will I have to do this manually in my A4 or will it set itself back one hour automatically? After fiddling with some settings and reading through the owners manual my conclusion is: I'm going to have to set this damn this manually! Despite the fact that my car is equipped with 3G Nav, satellite radio, and RDS it appears that my A4 is not capable of time syncing to any of these resources. The manual does mention that in the Car Settings>Time menu there could be on option called "Time Source" which will let you choose between "Quartz Clock" (setting the time manually) and "Radio Clock" (time automatically syncs with radio time) but my car does not show this option.

Can somebody explain to me if I'm doing something wrong? I mean my 4 year old cell phone sets its own time; my GPS running watch sets its own time; my 6 year old desktop PC automatically syncs with time servers...am I really going to have to suffer the indignity of resetting the time manually in my 2010 technological tour de force A4? Now mind you, I'm fully capable setting the clock myself and it's not difficult at all, but shouldn't a car in 2010 with this level of technology be taking care of this simple task automatically, a task that computers, cell phones, and GPS units have been doing for years?!

End of rant

I have three thoughts on this:
 

1) Not every location observes daylight savings time.

2) While I am a complete stickler for having every clock in my home, on my person and in my car read the exact time, many folks want to be able to set the clock themselves so they can display what ever time they like.

3) It, probably, took you close to three minutes to compose and post your rant. The current time in your A4 can easily be set in less than 30 seconds. You do the math.

Bob, thanks for your response. Each of your points hold some water, but...

1) again, if cell phones, GPS watches, and PCs can sync to the correct time regardless of location or observance of DST, why shouldn't the Audi's GPS and/or RDS do the same or at least offer the option of auto syncing?

2) only foolish people don't want the exact correct time (don't get me started on people who set their clocks 5 minutes fast because they say they're always late!)

3) The ease/difficulty of accessing and changing the time is not the main reason for my rant but rather it's the strange omission of such a basic feature from such an advanced car. I know there are other Nav equipped cars out there that sync their clocks with GPS, so why would Audi let this slide?

This reminds me of the time I stayed in a Hilton hotel earlier this year and I wanted to change the alarm clock time because it was reading about 25 minutes too fast. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to set the time myself. I tried every button and knob, and even tried pressing and holding down a few at the same time. I finally gave up and called the front desk and they didn't know how to set the time either. So they called maintenance and sent an engineer to my room. He came in, used a flat head screwdriver to pry off the plastic bezel on top of the alarm clock (basically disassembling it!) to reveal a couple "secret" buttons on the printed circuit board for setting the time. WTF!? Do they really not want hotel guests setting their own time?

Sorry for the tangent (and rant).

I would so screw with the time just to mess with the next guest.

I bugs me that I have to do this on my 2010 car when my 5 year old washing machine does it automatically!

We've got a transmitter in the UK for this just like in Germany so why don't they use it.....or we've got RDS on our radios so why don't they use it .... or we've got GPS in our cars so why don't they use it.

Same on my S4 and TT before that. About time they sorted this small glitch out.

How to adjust the hours and mins? I couldn't find the information in the owner's mannual.

Thanks.

I am still driving a 2008 A4 and I changed the clock myself this past weekend – no big deal. I agree it might be a nice feature to have it done automatically, but I would much prefer Audi focus its efforts on QA and re-contenting the B8 A4's for the stuff they've lost vis-à-vis earlier models. For my wants this includes: full size matched rim spare wheel, 6 disc CD changer, under seat trays and power folding mirrors. I fear that in the rush toward technology-driven features (seen as improvements) the auto companies aren’t foregoing a chance to make bullet proof basic “start and run everyday vehicles.” Guess my age is showing – lol!

These wouldn't impact a software developer adding one line of code. Anyways I've got underseat trays and power folding mirrors and I declined the optional 6 disc CD so the only thing from that is a full sized spare. I don't think the chassis designer and the guy coding the MMI software should conflict with each other.

Bob I disagree - No reason that the car clock can not sync to the atomic clock in Fort Collins - most of my home wall clocks do so now. Easy chip to install (some watches do this and even sync to the atomic clocks in Asia and Europe when you are traveling)