Audi Pre-Sense Currently Restricted???

[Rod__Knee]

Dashboard light and message came on in my 2017 A3. Looked in the owners manual and said to clear any debris or leaves from the front sensor; which is located near the bottom of the grill. There were no leaves or any sort of debris on the sensor but the light came on initially when I was driving in some crazy rain. I parked, went to work and just now driving home, the dashboard light was still on and it wasn’t raining nearly as hard as before.

Anyone have similar experiences? My car only has 5k miles so far but stupid, little things like this irritate me.

[liljonny16]

I keep getting an error saying Audi Pre-Sense malfunction. It doesn't stay on, It just comes on randomly for like 15 seconds to sometimes up to 2 minutes. I haven't the slightest idea where to even to look for troubleshooting. Mine is a 2015 and I just hit 30K miles. I know your frustration.

[Corners4kids]

Same thing happened a few times in rain/snow. I get the snow and don’t want it work on roads like that. Once the car even panic braked on a deserted dry road with nothing in front of me. Took it in and they found condensation on the inside of the sensor they had to clean. Annoying, but fixed under warranty. 2017 S3, 5k Miles.

[littleredwagen]

Dashboard light and message came on in my 2017 A3. Looked in the owners manual and said to clear any debris or leaves from the front sensor; which is located near the bottom of the grill. There were no leaves or any sort of debris on the sensor but the light came on initially when I was driving in some crazy rain. I parked, went to work and just now driving home, the dashboard light was still on and it wasn’t raining nearly as hard as before.

Anyone have similar experiences? My car only has 5k miles so far but stupid, little things like this irritate me.

I had my sensor bracket get broken on me and this happened after I fixed it. Dealer told me the system needs to calibrated which isn't cheap. Have the dealer take a look.

[wasup0818]

It happen to me all the time when I drive it in the snow. I cleaned mine up today but it still saying is restrict.. Maybe temp is too cold and freeze some ice behind the cover this time.

[maizer89]

this problem recently Popped up on my car after some days of heavy rain and lot of large puddle driving. Error hasn't gone away, took it to one dealer and they found that the sensor was working appropriately but is misaligned and needs alignment which is somehow not covered by warranty and is a very very expensive job.... I''m taking the car to a second dealer because logically if I didn't ram my car into a parking barrier or damage the sensor at all, why is the alignment programming on me? and if I do pay for it, what prevents the next pothole or rainstorm from misaligning it again. Hope I don't have to escalate this to AoA

[bakedcorn]

My wife’s A3 had something similar to Audi pre-sense error but in her case the little airbag icon lit up on the dash which would also disable the airbag for the passenger seat. It comes and goes. Dealership diagnosed it as a bad sensor in the passenger seat which is to be scheduled at a later date.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

[pandb1320]

this problem recently Popped up on my car after some days of heavy rain and lot of large puddle driving. Error hasn't gone away, took it to one dealer and they found that the sensor was working appropriately but is misaligned and needs alignment which is somehow not covered by warranty and is a very very expensive job.... I''m taking the car to a second dealer because logically if I didn't ram my car into a parking barrier or damage the sensor at all, why is the alignment programming on me? and if I do pay for it, what prevents the next pothole or rainstorm from misaligning it again. Hope I don't have to escalate this to AoA

Any update?

I have this exact problem going on. Audi of Arlington took a week to even get to it despite having an appointment. Then they get to it and say it’s $1200-1300 for the re-calibration. Insinuated the car had been in an accident. It’s all original body panels no accidents ever. Bought new from Audi of Frederick, primarily because the sales rep at Audi Arlington never got back to me.

I called Audi Frederick and they are going to take it in next week but no way I’m paying for this BS. Sounds like a design or component flaw.

Either way I’m now officially done with Audi of Arlington. Shame because it's the most convenient dealership. Maybe I'll have to use Audi Bethesda for service moving forward.

Hoping someone has figured out how to get Audi to do the right thing here regarding this sensor issue. I never had problems with BMW covering anything under warranty. Once it got out of warranty it got expensive but during warranty didn't worry about anything. Same with the Volvo.

[Ordie]

I had the same thing happened. Took it to the dealer. It needed to be realigned. Took 30 minutes

[pandb1320]

I had the same thing happened. Took it to the dealer. It needed to be realigned. Took 30 minutes

Did they charge you for it?

[Rod__Knee]

I ended up taking it Audi Honolulu and discovered that the sensor needed to be realigned. Didn’t take too long. Warranty covered it. Hope this doesn’t happen often.

[Ordie]

Did they charge you for it?

They cover it under warranty.

[maizer89]

I took it to a second dealer and they gave me the same answer that it wasn’t covered under warranty but the Cost of realignment was half of the first dealer, I guess I’ll give Audi of America a try

[wasup0818]

who need PRE SENSE. lol screw it

[maizer89]

Trust me I wish I could just deactivate it but it’s and error light and no one can tell me if it’s gonna count against me or not when I turn in the lease, kind of soured Audi ownership. Gotta agree service for bmw was a lot more lenient/helpful

[Ordie]

who need PRE SENSE. lol screw it

I actually didn’t care for it but mine got really bad since the pre-sense is tied to the parking sensor. So when I would be pulling into a parking spot, it would randomly stop the car because it would be thinking it was going to hit the car in front or the curb. When backing out of parking spot, it would do the same sensing object in the rear were closer. I would be at a stop light and it would set off the warning from the car in front, even at a normal distance. So I had to keep the parking sensor off so the car could drive at low speed without setting off the warnings and/or activating the brakes.

[blakebird]

2018 A3, right at a year old with 21,400 miles.

I just got the 'pre sense currently limited' error message a few days ago, I made an appt to have the car looked at. No damage, no mouse chew marks , just an error message out of thin air.

"it needs to be aligned and calibrated" was the official word - to the tune of $330. Not a warrantable item they said.

I may contact another local dealer to see if they have the same attitude as Ordie above (they covered his under warranty).
There was no way I was going to pay $330 to have it done, when it could reappear just as mysteriously any old time...

I asked them to clear the error and that would be fine. They did, and naturally the error reappeared when I re-started the car.

[sbruno624]

2018 A3, right at a year old with 21,400 miles.

I just got the 'pre sense currently limited' error message a few days ago, I made an appt to have the car looked at. No damage, no mouse chew marks , just an error message out of thin air.

"it needs to be aligned and calibrated" was the official word - to the tune of $330. Not a warrantable item they said.

I may contact another local dealer to see if they have the same attitude as Ordie above (they covered his under warranty).
There was no way I was going to pay $330 to have it done, when it could reappear just as mysteriously any old time...

I asked them to clear the error and that would be fine. They did, and naturally the error reappeared when I re-started the car.

This happened to me and the car was fixed under warranty? That makes so sense that they would charge you. They’re not supposed to need calibration. It’s a pain to calibrate too. The whole bumper comes off and they need to do a 4 wheel alignment.

It happened to me twice. The first time it went away on its own, the second time I got it fixed and it hasn’t come back to definitely get it fixed.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

[blakebird]

This happened to me and the car was fixed under warranty? That makes so sense that they would charge you. They’re not supposed to need calibration. It’s a pain to calibrate too. The whole bumper comes off and they need to do a 4 wheel alignment.

It happened to me twice. The first time it went away on its own, the second time I got it fixed and it hasn’t come back to definitely get it fixed.

The irony is that at the 20k service, my car didn't pass the alignment check - ever so slightly out, so I had them do an alignment. That was done just a few weeks ago.
Now with this pre sense calibration biz, they said ideally the car needed to be realigned while doing the calibration.

If I don't have luck getting another dealer to do the pre sense under warranty, I might have it done when the car needs realigned in the future.

It really is amazing that this sensor apparatus could go out of calibration / adjustment through no fault of the owner, and they would not consider it a warrantable item.

[Rs3three]

My rs3 will display that message if you put traction into sport mode, ie. 1 press on the traction button. But that is normal behaviour.

[blakebird]

I took the car to a couple of dealers - none would fix the sensor under warranty. Fantastic car, but what good is four years of warranty when an item like this pops up and you can't get it covered - and there's no guarantee it won't happen again at any given time, to be fixed on your nickel again.
My frustration was not with the car - I loved driving it and it pained me to do it, but since AoA has historically said "it's between you and your dealer" on these issues....the car is gone.

[sbruno624]

Any update?

I have this exact problem going on. Audi of Arlington took a week to even get to it despite having an appointment. Then they get to it and say it’s $1200-1300 for the re-calibration. Insinuated the car had been in an accident. It’s all original body panels no accidents ever. Bought new from Audi of Frederick, primarily because the sales rep at Audi Arlington never got back to me.

I called Audi Frederick and they are going to take it in next week but no way I’m paying for this BS. Sounds like a design or component flaw.

Either way I’m now officially done with Audi of Arlington. Shame because it's the most convenient dealership. Maybe I'll have to use Audi Bethesda for service moving forward.

Hoping someone has figured out how to get Audi to do the right thing here regarding this sensor issue. I never had problems with BMW covering anything under warranty. Once it got out of warranty it got expensive but during warranty didn't worry about anything. Same with the Volvo.

Yeah dude, fuck Audi Arlington. I swear to god they did the SAME exact thing to me. They had the car for a week, fully disassembled with no updates.

Then after I finally just showed up I was told “your car has a lot of codes we have to replace the wiring harness”

Idiots - absolute idiots. I asked if they had cleared the codes since I tried to reset the system by unplugging the battery and the service manager told me “they’re supposed to but I guess not”

Almost ripped my entire car apart to fix a problem that didn’t exist.

Went to Audi Silver spring and they fixed it in 3 days. Now I drive the 45 minutes to go there. Their rentals suck, but their service advisors are absolutely stellar.

For anyone that is wondering, to fix the problem, they put the car up on an alignment rack and aim these laser things at this mirror array on the wall. That tells the sensor the distance and angle etc. You technically CAN do it with VAGCOM and drive around a bit, but I don’t trust that. I’ve heard some people have had success with it but those are with the two little globe radars you see on the A5 etc.

Ironically, to get an alignment done if you have ACC it’s only $500. I say only, but they’re charging you $1,000+ to do the same thing and push one extra button.

If you’re in the Arlington areas though, try NGP or Eurowerks. Last time I checked Eurowerks hadn’t purchased the tool to do it yet but that was almost a year ago. NGP has a lot of goodies so they may have it.

Worst case scenario you get the angles from VAGCOM and manually adjust it if it doesn’t go away. Or, park incredibly close to a wall or another car and let the car run. I’m not sure if that fixes it but the first time mine magically fixed itself I was parked incredibly close to a wall and it recalibrated somehow?

I would try a capacitive discharge before anything. Unplug the positive and negative battery wires and touch them together for a little. That completely resets the cars computer. It resets your clock but the other settings hold. It may cause the radar to recalibrate itself.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

[fischman]

I wanted to add to this conversation. Had this issue on my MY 2017 A3 back in January. Took it to Audi Denver and they said it normally wasn't covered by Warranty but they'd take care of it that time. I asked them a bunch of questions about how it could happen and what would happen if it occurred again. They assured me it wouldn't. About 2 weeks ago I was sitting in my car in my parking lot getting ready to leave and just listening to music and it happened again. Got the warning and it hasn't gone away for 2 weeks. I have an appointment with Audi tomorrow, so we'll see where this goes, but I'm going to be upset if they make me pay for the recalibration. There is no reason this should go out of calibration while sitting still. It was raining at the time, so maybe moisture is part of the issue (When it happened the first time in January we had a really wet rain/snow event that I was driving in). But you would think they would make sure the part was properly sealed being on the front exterior of the car.

Josh

[bigt69]

So I just fixed this issue on my 2018 A3. Had the pre-sense restricted error after driving in heavy rain. It did not go away so I had the dealer look at it when they did my yearly inspection. They claimed the ACC needed re-alignment which also requires all of the wheels to be in perfect alignment, and none of it is covered under warranty. They then told me the price to complete the alignment would be about $1200 as it takes a full day to complete. (you can find ACC calibration video tutorials online. It requires expensive equipment, but is fully demonstrated in an 8 minute video. Yes, 8 minutes.) I said no thank you and they magically lowered the price to just under $800. Instead of paying for this alignment on a car with under 20k miles in perfect condition, I called Audi of America who told me it should be covered under warranty. After about 2 weeks of phone calls with A of A, they decided to side with the dealer.

A few days ago, I took a second look at the front of my car where the sensor is located. The ACC sensor is the black box directly under the license plate. I thought maybe the plate frame with the dealership name on it was obstructing the vision of the ACC sensor. I took it off and threw it away, and made sure that the license plate was as flush as possible to the mount. Started the car back up and it is working flawlessly.

This may not be the issue for everyone, but I would be careful before blindly forking over enormous amounts of cash to inexperienced mechanics. Based on my research - unless you have had an accident where the ACC box or a supporting structure was damaged, there is more than likely a simple fix or the sensor is faulty. Audi may not agree with me on this, but if you have not been in an accident this should be a warranty covered issue.

Best of luck.

[Kevin quattro]

Dashboard light and message came on in my 2017 A3. Looked in the owners manual and said to clear any debris or leaves from the front sensor; which is located near the bottom of the grill. There were no leaves or any sort of debris on the sensor but the light came on initially when I was driving in some crazy rain. I parked, went to work and just now driving home, the dashboard light was still on and it wasn’t raining nearly as hard as before.

Anyone have similar experiences? My car only has 5k miles so far but stupid, little things like this irritate me.

I had the same issue. Faulty sensors. You're still under warranty. Take it to audi. They'll replace it for free.

[Kevin quattro]

I think they actually just recalibrated it now that I'm thinking about it. Either way. Free simple fix

[fischman]

I wanted to add to this conversation. Had this issue on my MY 2017 A3 back in January. Took it to Audi Denver and they said it normally wasn't covered by Warranty but they'd take care of it that time. I asked them a bunch of questions about how it could happen and what would happen if it occurred again. They assured me it wouldn't. About 2 weeks ago I was sitting in my car in my parking lot getting ready to leave and just listening to music and it happened again. Got the warning and it hasn't gone away for 2 weeks. I have an appointment with Audi tomorrow, so we'll see where this goes, but I'm going to be upset if they make me pay for the recalibration. There is no reason this should go out of calibration while sitting still. It was raining at the time, so maybe moisture is part of the issue (When it happened the first time in January we had a really wet rain/snow event that I was driving in). But you would think they would make sure the part was properly sealed being on the front exterior of the car.

Josh

Just an update as I forgot I posted this, but saw the recent update. Thankfully Audi took care of me the second time as well. They didn't even mention that it wasn't a covered item this time around. So far through some rough winter driving I've not had any further issues, so hopefully they completely fixed whatever was going on.

[MiggyS3]

Well its 2020 and i just purchased a 2015 S3 with about 58K miles. and this Audi pre sense malfunction warning keeps popping its head here and there. So far i just try to ignore it and try to disable back up camera. and ot goes away. for a week or so and then i get peranoid in the parking lots and turn the camera on just cuz it safe that way. but for the most part. i havent had any issues were the car brakes for me or the seat belts tighten on the road. that sounds scary as hell to be honest. anyways i wish there was a fix. seems everyone has luck and no luck on this issue...

[sj9ninety]

My wife’s A3 had something similar to Audi pre-sense error but in her case the little airbag icon lit up on the dash which would also disable the airbag for the passenger seat. It comes and goes. Dealership diagnosed it as a bad sensor in the passenger seat which is to be scheduled at a later date.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

I had the exact same. Sensor replaced under warranty. 2016 S3 40k Miles.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

[MiggyS3]

I had the exact same. Sensor replaced under warranty. 2016 S3 40k Miles.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

seems like this damn issue should become a National Recall. anyone else agree?