A few whinges on my A3

saudi · Oct 27, 2014

Overall I love my A3...

May be I am missing something but...

Why no house no./street allowed after entering full postcode?
Time didn't change for day light savings?? May be I need to tick something?

When nav plans route to dest, how can I see all steps? I want to know if its taking me via M25 or A roads !!

When I am reversing, I don't want hill assist to put handbrake and turn off engine! surely this should be possible...

Don76 · Oct 27, 2014

You can set time to auto-set via satellite.

veeeight · Oct 27, 2014

You can indeed, but you can't set it to auto adjust to GMT/BST for UK cars.

Don76 · Oct 27, 2014

So what happened at the weekend for those who have satellite set times?
Didn't it auto turn the clock back?

Blackwhite · Oct 27, 2014

veeeight said:
You can indeed, but you can't set it to auto adjust to GMT/BST for UK cars.

In the United States we change the clocks this Saturday at 2:a.m. ------
I have a new A3 Saloon. Will this automatically set? :think:

mjcourtney · Oct 27, 2014

Don76 said:
So what happened at the weekend for those who have satellite set times?
Didn't it auto turn the clock back?

No, you have to manually adjust it. My grans 2003 Mitsubishi does it automatically.... It's a joke that the A3 doesn't.

glospete · Oct 28, 2014

It's all part of the EU plot to screw the UK

0B1001001 · Oct 28, 2014

The BST/GMT debacle is also easy to fix with a software update, if they could be *****... which makes it even worse. However, it's a first world problem and I'm not going to lose sleep over it

veeeight · Oct 28, 2014

saudi said:
Why no house no./street allowed after entering full postcode?

This depends on the postcode, if there is only 1 address associated with that postcode, then no further entry is possible. Sometimes the Nav postcode database is incomplete, this is the database supplier.

Time didn't change for day light savings?? May be I need to tick something?

Yes you do. Every time it changes GMT/BST you need to tick the Summertime ON/OFF box
See: http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/thread...-on-the-8v-chassis.198794/page-2#post-2297025

When nav plans route to dest, how can I see all steps? I want to know if its taking me via M25 or A roads !!

Press the "Tour" button

When I am reversing, I don't want hill assist to put handbrake and turn off engine! surely this should be possible...

Press the Stop/Start button to deactivate S/S, and press the Hold Assist button to deactivate HA before performing tricky slow speed manoeuvres, when you want to creep.

saudi · Oct 28, 2014

Thanks for all the replies, as we know nothing is perfect!!!

veeeight · Oct 28, 2014

0B1001001 said:
The BST/GMT debacle is also easy to fix with a software update, if they could be *****... which makes it even worse. However, it's a first world problem and I'm not going to lose sleep over it

First world problem indeed, yes !

This is called progress. In y'olden days, our car clocks used to be set from FM-RDS (which in this country corrected for GMT/BST), or DAB (again, corrected for GMT/BST). In rare cases, the car clock could be set from the 60kHz MSF (ex-Rugby) UK Radio Clock signal, transmitter at Anthorn, Cumbria.

Now, our new cars get their time signal from GPS - which of course, has no concept of Wintertime or Summertime! Hence no automatic correction for GPS time based signals.

In fact, GPS is actually 16 seconds out from UTC (due to leap seconds), see here for more info:
http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/threads/time-change-to-bst.213816/#post-2126848
so the GPS receiver in the car needs to correct for this 16 second variance.

So - in order to "fix" our cars for automatically changing BST, they need to either
Reference FM-RDS again
Reference DAB again
Reference the 60kHz UK Radio Clock
Or insert rules into the software (Last Sunday in March +0100 at 0100, Last Sunday in October -0100 at 0200)

Simply put - because our cars get their time from GPS - GPS has no concept of Summertime/Wintertime.

cemerson · Oct 28, 2014

No, but the correction can easily be programmed in to happen automatically. It's very easy to do, and it's a shame they didn't bother.

cemerson · Oct 28, 2014

Also, the GPS-UTC correction factor isn't built into the GPS hardware (that would be pretty useless since it changes all the time), it's part of the GPS signal itself. The satellites can be updated with the offset to send as part of the signal.

veeeight · Oct 28, 2014

cemerson said:
No, but the correction can easily be programmed in to happen automatically. It's very easy to do, and it's a shame they didn't bother.

Yes, it's easy to do if you consider the UK in isolation.

But when you sell a car worldwide there are many more rules and corrections to program in, so it isn't as simplistic as just considering it for one country.

I suspect someone left it off the spec of the MMI and the supplier didn't think to implement it. Or they decided that it was too difficult/expensive for a mere A3, so didn't bother.

a3_phil · Oct 28, 2014

veeeight said:
But when you sell a car worldwide there are many more rules and corrections to program in, so it isn't as simplistic as just considering it for one country.

The Windows operating system has managed to deal with daylight savings time for most countries for over a decade now through many different versions. Whilst it's not trivial to cater for all markets, it's not really rocket science either.

veeeight · Oct 28, 2014

Yep, true, they probably just couldn't be bothered implementing it for the cheaper A3

Gaz| · Oct 28, 2014

As for the time thing, in my A3, i just went Menu - Time (In Top Left corner) - then in Time source: GPS instead of manual.. and it searched GPS and automatically changed the time to the correct time?

cemerson · Oct 28, 2014

Yes, it would... we are in GMT at the moment, which matches the time the GPS satellites are sending out. Unless you have selected the option for the manual summer time, it would set it to the correct time.

cemerson · Oct 28, 2014

veeeight said:
Yes, it's easy to do if you consider the UK in isolation.

But when you sell a car worldwide there are many more rules and corrections to program in, so it isn't as simplistic as just considering it for one country.

I suspect someone left it off the spec of the MMI and the supplier didn't think to implement it. Or they decided that it was too difficult/expensive for a mere A3, so didn't bother.

It really still isn't hard. There's a finite number of countries (and small number in the scheme of things), each with their own rules on DST that can easily be programmed in. Any changes to the rules (rare) can be handled via software updates at service times.

Blackwhite · Nov 3, 2014

We changed the clocks back yesterday. When I got in my car this morning (A3 Saloon) I was suprised that they automatically changed and I did not have to do an anyfhing.

veeeight · Nov 3, 2014

US/Canada?

or Mexico? Bahamas?

Blackwhite · Nov 3, 2014

A few whinges on my A3

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