3.6 Quattro Awd Premium Navigation 6cd Heated Leather Pano 1 Owner Must See!!!!! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

J.D. Power study identifies top seats for your tush

File under News your fanny can use: The seating systems in the Ford Escape and Edge, the Audi A3, Chevrolet Cruze, Kia Cadenza, Porsche Cayenne and Toyota Tundra received top marks in a new J.D. Power study on seating and seat belt quality and satisfaction. The J.D. Power 2017 Seat Quality and Satisfaction Study asked more than 77,000 new owners and lessees of 2017 model-year cars and light trucks to rate their vehicle's seats and seat belts within the first 90 days of taking ownership. The survey is broken up into seven vehicle segments and scored on total seat problems per 100 within each segment, with awards presented to the seating system supplier. Canadian auto supplier Magna won three of seven first-place awards for its seating systems in the A3, Escape and Edge. Ireland-based Adient got top marks for its seats in the Cadenza and Cayenne. Lear Corp. won for the Cruze, and Avanzar Interior Technologies scored highest for seats in the Tundra. J.D. Power says its study is intended for automakers and suppliers with quality and satisfaction information to be used in developing and marketing seating systems. "But the results are just as interesting to a consumer audience," the company says. "After all, some drivers spend a considerable amount of time behind the wheel, and it's helpful to know which vehicles offer the most comfortable seats for those long commutes." Ain't that the truth. Ford was the only automaker whose seat systems, both manufactured by Magna, received top honors in two segments: the Escape for mass-market compact SUV and the Edge for mass-market midsize/large SUV. J.D. Power says it used 22 attributes to measure seat quality, three measures of seat belt quality and 12 to measure satisfaction. Awards were presented to the seating suppliers. Related Video: Image Credit: Audi Auto News Design/Style Audi Chevrolet Ford Kia Porsche Toyota Safety JD Power seats

2016 Technology of the Year Finalist: Audi Virtual Cockpit

The heart of most infotainment systems is a touchscreen in the center console. In many systems, some information can be sent to the gauge cluster in slightly redacted form – stripped-down navigation commands, basic audio info, that sort of thing. To get the full story, the driver has to take their eyes off the road and look to the middle of the dashboard. Audi's Virtual Cockpit, in essence, ditches the center screen and places all that information in the gauge cluster. The high-resolution TFT screen is just over a foot wide, and it has two main modes: Classic view, and Infotainment view. Classic looks like many other traditional TFT gauge clusters, with large traditional gauges and the ability to display a decent amount of information in the space in-between. Go into Infotainment view, and the gauges shrink and head to the lower corners, freeing up a much larger amount of real estate for, say, the nav system map. The gauges also get out of the way when utilizing the menu, entering a destination, or that sort of thing. The four main modes are standard stuff. Virtual Cockpit will show you navigation, media, phone, and trip computer information in large or small formats. You interact with Virtual Cockpit with a familiar MMI wheel-type controller in the center console, like in many other Audis, or with buttons and a scroll/push wheel on the left side of the steering wheel. Climate control functions are handed by physical controls cleverly integrated in the center three vents. It takes a lot of processing power to make all this work as well as it does, and that's handled by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor – a quad-core processor usually seen in tablets and smartphones. The system is quick and responsive, and we found the high-resolution screen to be impressively sharp. If there's a downside, it's that Virtual Cockpit doesn't leave an opportunity for a passenger to step in and, say, enter a destination or change the radio station without altering what's right in front of the driver. It could be inconvenient at best, distracting at worst, to have the nav system directions you're trying to follow suddenly be superseded by the audio menu. Adding a small secondary screen for the passenger could be one fix; a connected companion smartphone app another. In the meantime, it's an impressive implementation of a clever idea.

2018 Audi A5 gets a manual and S5 gets 369 lb-ft of torque

Update: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that the A5 was the only Audi model to offer a manual transmission with the 252-horsepower inline-four. Audi will offer the same combination on the A4 in the near future. The text has been updated to reflect this. When Audi revealed the new A5 and S5 coupes, we knew the elegant lines of the European model would come to the United States. But the big question was, would the drivetrains, and in particular, the manual transmission, come along? The answer is yes. The 2018 A5, with its 252-horsepower, 273 lb-ft of torque turbocharged four-cylinder, will be offered in America with both a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, and a classic six-speed manual. These combinations will take an A5 to 60 mph in 5.6 or 5.7 seconds, respectively. The A4 sedan will also offer the manual with the same engine soon, in case you need an extra pair of doors. The four-cylinder model is also the only A5 model with a manual, since the turbocharged V6 S5 only comes with an 8-speed automatic. To make up for a lack of shifting involvement, drivers can take advantage of the S5's readily available torque. Like the Euro-spec model, our S5 will come with 369 lb-ft of twist, and it peaks at a stunningly low 1,350 rpm. That torque, combined with the engine's 354 horsepower, launches the S5 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds. Every type of A5 or S5 also funnels its power through a Quattro all-wheel-drive system with torque vectoring. A5 owners can also personalize how their cars ride and handle, with either a sport suspension with different sway bars, shocks, and springs, or with the comfort adaptive damping suspension. The latter uses constantly adjusting electronic shocks for improved ride. The S5 has an available sports adaptive suspension that works similarly, as well as a dynamic steering option that can change steering ratios. Capping things off is an extensive list of gadgets and safety features, some standard, such as the LED interior lighting and panoramic sunroof, and others optional, such as Audi's Virtual Cockpit LCD instrument cluster and lane keeping assist. A new feature for the A5 line is the MMI touch system, which allows drivers to write in characters with their fingers. Something Audi hasn't revealed about the A5 and S5 is the pricing and availability, but those details should come soon. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2017 Audi A5 View 27 Photos Image Credit: Audi LA Auto Show Audi Coupe Luxury Performance quattro audi s5