2005 Audi A6 Test Drive

One Mystifying Ride

The new Audi A6's handsome exterior and powerful V-8 are offset by confusing controls that undermine its appeal.

With no latch, no button and no directions whatsoever on the glovebox itself, your friend is most likely (unless he or she owns the same car) to push on the glovebox and hope it opens up. That won't work either.

You open the glovebox by pushing a button on the center console, a button that is nowhere near the glovebox. This is something that, for us, required five minutes of searching in the garage before we even put the vehicle in gear. This was maddening, considering we just wanted to put a CD in the changer — as if we weren't angry enough to find that Audi, or any carmaker for that matter, still puts CD changers in gloveboxes, such that you have to pull to over to work them.

The glovebox episode typifies several experiences we had in the new A6, in which we went to do routine things — change the temperature, for instance — and had to rethink our understanding of how cars work. The Audi A6 wins the award for car controls that are the hardest to figure out — or at least ties for that distinction with the model range of BMW.

Sure, once you figure out the controls, you will know how they work forever, and it won't be a problem. But why should we have to put in all that extra effort? What was wrong with having a latch directly on the glovebox?

The overall feeling of the A6's cockpit is that it is extremely high-tech but not as warm and inviting as that of a Lexus or the poorly received though excellent Phaeton luxury sedan from Audi owner Volkswagen.

We realize that by raising such complaints we are challenging the quality for which Audi is most famous: design. The exterior of the A6 is certainly seductive, but sitting behind the wheel is another matter.