@ScottishA4B9 I am surprised you say this. I live and work in Milton Keynes, an area of many roundabouts, and dual carriageway approaches at 70mph, therefore the ability to quickly get into a gap is paramount.
At no time since owning the car, only 10 weeks granted, have I felt in any way concerned with the car at the roundabout. The engine is always running at speed as I am on the brakes. At less than a few miles an hour, the engine stops, but if I see a gap and know I need to aim for it, I prepare. Either knock into sport, or hit the down paddle, and the engine restarts in good time to hit the gap I saw in advance.
At no time have I had to hit the brakes mid pullout and manually restart the car, I don’t even understand why the engine wouldn’t restart itself. The laggy stop start as you put has restarted the car before I get back to the accelerator from the brake, certainly not laggy for me.
I believe there are more than enough safeguards in place to prevent what you describe from happening. Be it the sport option, be it the manual downshift or even thinking ahead a bit further. Mine is an auto, maybe that’s different to yours.
I would say though that my previous A6, which was a manual was dangerous. It used to stop totally at a similar speed, however lifting the clutch would restart the engine, but the revs would then be too low for a safe pullout. It was a diesel. Maybe therefore I have got used to pre-emptying the situation further in advance.
It’s just a variation to a driving style. With someone approaching at 40 or 50mph from right angles I need to know the car will go when I need it to, and I have absolutely no doubt in the technology of the A4, it just works (For me). Maybe if I get caught out one day, as you appear to have done, my viewpoint will change, but not yet.
You can turn off the intelligent coasting in the mmi as well as disable start stop, then none of this occurs. This to me though is like buying UHD tv to watch black and white. The car has the technology and I like to use it, not turn it all off.
We are all different though, all drive differently, have different expectations as to what is acceptable etc. Appreciate there are some complaining of the same issue, out of many thousands of cars on the road, probably a very small percentage. I still believe with appropriate adaption of driving style all will be good. After all, we are always adapting. Manual choke, no synchromesh gearboxes, no servo assisted brakes, no power steering etc etc, my driving style has changed multiple times over the time I have been driving.
