Optional automatic climate control causes curious surprise of an Audi owner

In Denmark, there was a curious case of a recent owner of the Audi Q4 E-Tron. After he decided against the optional three-zone automatic climate control, the carmaker nevertheless equipped his new vehicle with a button that can only be used with this option. Pressing the button now reminds him every time that he has not purchased the optional add-on.

Audi installs sync button without function

Specifically, it is the Sync button in the dashboard of the Audi Q4 E-Tron, which in the future will always remind the fresh owner to have done without the optional add-on.

In Denmark, the three-zone automatic climate control in the Q4 E-Tron comes at a surcharge of around 500 euros, while in many other countries, such as the UK or the US, it is already part of the standard equipment.

The new Audi owner didn’t want to pay this amount and therefore did without the automatic climate control. However, the carmaker from Ingolstadt apparently didn’t want to let him get away with it completely unpunished and still installed the Sync button, which is solely responsible for the automatic climate control.

Pressing the button gives an error message on the display in the center console that “The function has not been purchased”. On Reddit, the Danish Audi buyer shares a short video showing irritation with the caption “Thank you Audi”.

This raises the question of whether the three-zone automatic climate control in the Audi Q4 E-Tron is always installed in principle and only needs to be enabled (by purchase). After all, the corresponding button for it is there. In this country, the Audi Q4 E-Tron starts at 41,900 euros. The aforementioned three-zone automatic climate control according to the official price list adds 590 Euros to the optional “climate control package”.