Folks,

I have a 2013 S4 Prestige 6MT with most of the bells and whistles. One of those has been a problem since I bought the car in October of 2012. Only when the weather is well below freezing does this happen. Go to cold car, start, get error that says "Audi Side Assist is currently not available". If I restart about 3-7 times it works or if the weather warms up it was fine. I live over 500 miles from the dealer in Denver so I could never leave the car in the middle of winter long enough for them to see it themselves (even though I had videos I sent to them, they wanted to see it themselves).

Now that I am retired and we were near Denver we made arrangements to leave the car for a couple of days in late February. Well they ordered a module and then reprogrammed the car and it still did not work. I had to leave for Cheyenne for a few days so they had the car for almost a week with continuing problems. BUT, now they believed me. At least it was cold enough to cause the problem. After ordering another control module for the other side and installing it they finally solved the problem. Good thing since I only had 200 miles left on the warranty!

Josh in the service department was wonderful and although the 2015 A4 they gave me was nice it was nowhere near the car the S4 is. I am so happy to have the car back and for the first time EVERYTHING works. FYI, they also had to put in a new drivers side sun visor since the darn thing kept falling down slowly about 1 1/2" when pushed toward the windshield. After they replaced the Sirius/XM antennae last fall and these problems I (for now) have a flawlessly working car.

So, thanks for Audi of Denver (McDonald Auto Group) and their great service department for finally solving this problem. I, and they, have never heard of this cold weather side assist problem. So if someone finds this post on a Google search and has the same problem please call Josh in Denver to find out what they replaced.

Thanks to this forum for all the great info I have gleaned and I hope someone else can benefit from my experience.

Cheers,

Neil

 

Thanks for this post. I've just purchased a 2010 S4 6mt prestige with pretty much all the extras but haven't run into that problem yet (and we had some cold days since). I'm also in Colorado (but actually in the the Springs). Glad you had a great experience with Audi Denver (or previously known as McDonald Audi) but I did not. I can only warn everybody to stay away from them or at least the sales department.

 

Sheldon,

Sorry you had a bad experience with the sales department. I only dealt with one guy when I ordered the car. He offered to match any offer I could find.

I first emailed every Audi dealer within 600 miles with my request for a quote on the car and also did TrueCar.com which did get me a response from a dealer in the Springs. That sales guy gave me the best price and the sales rep at Audi of Denver matched it. However, before the car came in I discovered that he had left the dealership. I was pleased that the dealer honored the quote he had given me. I don't know what happened. It might even be possible he got fired for giving me such a great deal but regardless I got the car for the price agreed upon.

From here on out I will try to deal as much on the phone or online as possible as it can be a PITA to work with any sales person in person.

Neil