NHTSA Complaint #11549255 — 2023 AUDI Q5 E

Audi pre-sense occasionally alerts you to a problem (potential accident) when there is nothing wrong. But last Friday I was in the left turn lane, with my signal on and foot on brake waiting for the traffic to clear. When the traffic cleared I removed my foot from the brake, and tried to go forward, but the pre-sense immediately went into crash warning mode, turned bright solid red, made a loud noise and immediately locked my brakes. The car was frozen in place for at least 2-3 seconds before the brakes released and I could drive forward. If this happened on the highway - or even with someone behind me on a city street - I could get rear-ended and seriously injured. It turns out: 1. Numerous Audi Q5 owners have had this kind of pre-sense malfunction. (Just go online and look at the comments when you Google this. 2. Audi claims you can adjust the “sensitivity” of the pre-sense, but acquaintances who have tried this say it didn’t help. 3. You can turn off the pre-sense but have to do it each time you start the car up. 4. A friend who has a 2023 Q5 had not only similar problems with unnecessary warnings, and brake locks while trying to turn, but also had the pre-sense indicator go off and the brakes lock when a truck passed him at 45 mph. 5. This also happens on the 2023 Audi Q7. My nephew has one, two weeks ago was in the middle of an intersection, was waiting for traffic to clear to make a left turn, and then tried to. The crash warning went off, his car locked up and he was stuck in the middle of the intersection. Dangerous!