How is Clock Set?

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DickiePhitt

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I'm about to take the plunge on an S3 Sportback and am finding this forum great for finalising the spec.

I have a question as to whether the (real time) clock is automatically kept correct - via RDS or other means - which is important to me as I will do a lot of trips to/from France in the new car.

My 1998 Voyager had this feature and I was shocked on my 2009 TTS to find there was no working menu option to set the time other than manually.
 
The auto time feature relied on modules to be fitted, of which most cars do not have, so you'll have to check if its fitted to your car or request the feature if not standard on the 8V these days.
 
I'll have to ask then, but I can't believe what was standard 15yrs ago would not by now be included on a 'luxury' car, especially given the rate of technical progress and sophistication.
 
If you have Nav, it will automatically set the time from GPS.

I don't know what happens if you don't have nav, maybe FM-RDS time is used? Maybe an owner without Nav can tell us !

However - even if you have Nav - If it is a UK spec car, you have to manually add or subtract for BST via the MMI menu.

More info:
http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/new-a3-s3-8v-chassis/213816-time-change-bst.html
 
Thanks for the input, and the link - guess I didn't do an obscure enough search before posting!
 
I set mine to automatically set the time from GPS, but then noticed a stupid symbol of a satellite dish appear next to the time in the dashboard display. Didn't like that at all, so changed it back to manual setting. Think if you first just set it with GPS to get the right time (when my s3 was delivered the clock was set two minutes behind GMT) and the just flick it back to manual, job done. It's a nice little feature anyway.
 
Sounds like a good enough work-around. Maybe the SatNav will know when its abroad and set the time to local. Will have to wait and see. Thanks
 
I noticed that my didn't automatically advance by an hour when the clocks went forward (I waited a few days).

Put it to manual, advanced by an hour, then but it back to satellite setting.
 
Would have thought Audi would have caught up with what Chrysler, amongst others, were doing 15 years ago. So not a perfect solution and hopefully the SatNav has more brains than the clock! Not going to affect my decision to buy I think.
 
The GPS clock option is there on all A3 8Vs I believe as they all have a GPS receiver, regardless of whether you have nav.

The time-zone has to be set separately. Whilst the GPS can obviously knows where you are, it can't determine the time-zone from your location.
 
I don't have Nav on my 8V SB and can confirm that the clock can still be set via the GPS infrastructure that is nevertheless built into the car. Appropriate time zone has to be selected manually though, as noted above.
 
I believe all this automatic clock setting is supposed to be part of RDS functionality so SatNav/GPS should not have to do the job.
 
Nav preparation is standard on all UK Spec cars, but other countries may be different. I don't recall seeing anything on the setup to say use RDS instead of GPS, so RDS may not be supported.
 
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