brutus23079

I'm with ya Ganny. On my ol' 2004 Acura TL, I held a reset button and voila! ....the service interval reset. On VW/Audi vehicles, you pretty much have to "drink the Kool-Aid" and get a Ross-Tech VCDS cable to be a DIYer, or find someone near you with a cable. I was initially pissed off as well and then finally let myself get assimilated by the VAG collective (Star Trek Borg reference.) I bought one a couple months ago and have been quite satisfied. Changed a number of annoying "features" like the after-wipe function on the wipers (which did nothing except leave a streak right in my line-of-sight). If you post your location, I'm guessing someone with a proper VCDS will hook you up. I certainly will if you're in the Colorado Springs area.

MP4.2+6.0

It is what it is. It has been that way on almost all Audis since the mid 90's, with a brief gap on a few circa 2000. If it doesn't work for you I would suggest you move to the next vehicle rather than wave the "design defect" stuff. The beauty of the marketplace.

If you intend to DIY on an Audi, the cable is cost effective for a bunch of other diagnostics, as well as assessing electronic and other problems you will never find otherwise during warranty and that would otherwise go uncaught and unfixed and then bite later. Search if you want to know more, or buy the next brand w/out that diagnostic and get hit by similar gremlins off warranty with no practical ability to find them--a la Toyota, Chrysler, Merc,, Mini/BMW, Ford and a variety of others I have owned. Night and day difference for serious diagnostics and capabilities.

rdA4WtQ5

Our 2000 & 2008 A4's could be reset on the dash, the 2011 Q5 oil change reset only on dash. The VCDS cable is needed for rear brake pad replacement and clearing non-drivetrain codes that OBD scanners cannot see. We are lucky to have such a great tool available to us. With 2 Audi's it was not a difficult decision.

Bob Petruska

either you doing it, or an indie shop. Without retracting the electro-mechanical rear brake motors with the VCDS you can fry the brake motors and controller.....cost $1800 for replacements!

A VCDS is cheap and needed to troubleshoot/fix many vehicle systems.

Otheriwse stay away from Euro cars.....

spijun

Audi and other car manufacturers BMW, MB ........ done with intent, simply because of the warnings need to do regular service

Believe it or not there are many people who drive the car for 30 to 40.000 km that does not do the oil change, they just add oil but not changing.

Another reason why exists "Service Due" Light . In Europe, if you do not do service to the factory plan, you lose the factory warranty on your car.
To make guarantee to be valid, it must be regularly maintained car by schedule the factory
Regular oil change is not only that, the car connects to the database to eliminate possible errors and to see if there is a software upgrade


If you do not like it, as you wrote Bob Petruska "Otherwise stay away from Euro cars"

Redd

Ganny,
I don't like round tires but I can't figure out how you could call that a DEFECT.

Don't like the service light? Do what everyone else does, put a piece of black tape over it.

I can just hear the ladies at Audi after getting your call: "Hey, did you hear what this guy said?"

Defect? Sure, right after you explain that the "Passenger Air Bag is OFF!" light is a distraction when there's no one in the passenger seat. I'll back you up on that one.

snagitseven

At first I thought that there might be an arcane NHTSA regulation requiring the passenger airbag light be illuminated at all times if deactivated, even if the seat was unoccupied but after some digging, I found that the rule clearly states otherwise. Why Audi chose to disregard this exception is puzzling (and aggravating). There's already a seat sensor for the passenger seat belt warning which could have been used for the airbag light.

From NHTSA Airbag Regulatory text (highlighted text mine):

S19.2.3 The vehicle shall be equipped with a telltale light on the instrument panel which is illuminated whenever the passenger air bag is deactivated and not illuminated whenever the passenger air bag is activated, except that the telltale need not illuminate when the passenger seat is unoccupied. The telltale:<dd>(a) Shall be clearly visible from all front seating positions;
</dd><dd>(b) Shall be yellow;
</dd><dd>(c) Shall have the identifying words "PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF" on the telltale or within 25 mm (1.0 inch)of the telltale.....</dd><dt>
</dt><dt>http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/ruli...rgtxt1020.html</dt>

Reggie

Exactly right. Cars are more complicated now and if you want to do your own work then one should have a Ross VAG-COM.

Redd

snagit-
"except that the telltale need not "
Simpler and cheaper not to implement that option. And I'll bet someone's legal department said "Well, it isn't REQUIRED to be on all the time but we feel..."

If I don't find some "wood" that matches the interior, I'll put a piece of electrical tape over it. Got any suggestions for "wood" trim?

Xenonista

Perhaps, but the universe is rarely perfectly lined up and really doesn't give a hoot if we like it or not. There are much worse things in life than having to buy a $350 interface. It's just noise, and it only hurts once. I value my sanity so just pay up and move on.

The VCDS PC software runs fine on my MacBook Pro under VMware and WinXP (which I still have around due to having to on occasion having to run PIC programmers and such). Just assign the USB device to the VM permanently. I'd guess it also would work with VMware Workstation and WinXP on Linux. Probably virtualbox, xen, and others as well. There's a mobile version for Android and iOS (though it's $399) even. It's such a trivial obstacle it's really not worth getting worked up over.