Travel mode

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I have an A5 Cabriolet Sport, 2.0 Tfsi 2018. It has xenon headlights. The MMI only gives options for activation speed of auto lights. There is no reference to ‘travel mode’ in the handbook. So, any help will be appreciated.

savs said:

In MMI 'Exterior Lighting' settings you may see options for:

• Coming Home
• Leaving home
• Auto headlights
• Daytime run lights
• Headlamp converter

The 'Headlamp converter' option is what you want. Its a toggle between ON/ OFF.

As you've already accessed the menu then i suspect your vehicle either a) is not able to do it or b) its not enabled yet.
If its not enabled it may be worth googling the 'green menu' to see if it can be done. Or find someone with VCDS for a better examination.

Sorry, not much help there really!

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Thank you for that Dan. I'll have another look and see if the options button reveals settings I may have missed. This is my 5th VAG car going back to 2001, though the first Audi. All of the others have had a 'travel' setting. My son, who lives in France, has a VCDS setup so I'll ask him to look for appropriate coding changes. I have also asked the Audi dealership I bought the car from to look into it since it is an Audi Approved vehicle still under manufacturer's warranty. We'll get there in the end, one way or another.

Following on from my previous post regarding 'travel' setting for headlights from RHD to LHD, Audi Stratford, the dealership I bought the car from, have responded to my enquiry saying that with the xenon headlights, the beam is 'flat' and doesn't require adjustment for driving on the right since it can not dazzle oncoming drivers. Can anyone confirm this? If it is the case, then the absence of 'travel' setting makes sense.

Barbiere said:

Following on from my previous post regarding 'travel' setting for headlights from RHD to LHD, Audi Stratford, the dealership I bought the car from, have responded to my enquiry saying that with the xenon headlights, the beam is 'flat' and doesn't require adjustment for driving on the right since it can not dazzle oncoming drivers. Can anyone confirm this? If it is the case, then the absence of 'travel' setting makes sense.

Click to expand...

Hmm. Interesting. I had a search to see and the answer is very grey!
I had a quick look at the 2018 A5 manual on line. No note in there at all regarding headlight operation for driving on the continent. I'm gonna presume your fancy lights on the B9 model don't need it!

I have a B9 with LED lights where the light beam is definitely ‘flat’ and no converter is required. I’ve used it in France with no issues and no one flashing me, and that was many hours of night driving. I wasn’t aware this applied to the xenon lamps though, but perhaps both types are this way?


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LED lights are indeed 'flat', but I didn't think the xenons were. My 2010 cab has xenons and has the "headlamp convertor" option in the menu. Is it possible they are actually LED lights?

Further to my last post, the service receptionist at Stratford Audi reckons that satnav/gps data automatically 'converts' the headlights from RHD to LHD (and, presumably, vice versa) when you arrive on the continent/return to the UK. However, she didn't say whether this applied to the xenon lights on my A5 Cab. It would certainly seem possible for matrix LED lights, though I have those on my Mk2 Tiguan and they have to be changed through the 'travel' option in the Car Menu.

Another issue I had with the A5 was that the stop/start didn't work when it was delivered. I charged the battery for a few hours and, bingo, it works every time I stop once the engine is warm. I have seen this issue mentioned several times on the forum so, charging is at least one thing to try if you encounter this problem.

From my experience they may be correct ie that the lights are "flat". I have a few bikes and ride them down from the UK and the latest ones need no headlight stickers cos they are the same for RHD and LHD.

Mind you I am in the US. (drive on the right hand side) B8.5 the beam pattern is stepped down on the left not to blind oncoming traffic. There may be a difference with the B8 lights. At one point I was looking to buy headlamps for my 8.5 from europe and there were separate part numbers for LHD/RHD.

But I also see this

Well, I think that if you go somewhere often, then you should take trains. I used to drive my car all over Europe because of my job, but now I only drive trains. I took the post of director in our company and now I often need to come to our offices all over the country. I could travel by car, my salary allows me to do this, but I prefer to travel by train. Firstly, it is cheaper, and secondly, it is more convenient for me to take the train. I'm checking the schedule on DB Fahrplanauskunft - Bahn Auskunft and I arrive at the train station. It saves me a lot of time. Now I can spend time with my family or friends, and with the money saved, my wife and I will go to Nice this year.

Well, I am in France right now and the headlight beams do seem to dip to the right rather than left as in the UK. I haven't done anything to adjust them. If the SATNAV is 'intelligent' enough to know when to lift my foot off the accelerator, (the green foot) it will certainly 'know' which side of the road I'm driving on. We'll see what happens when I return to the UK next week.
Not sure about the trains though. my nearest SNCF station is too far away from my village to be convenient so I'll stick with the car.

I am sure all the later models have flat beams, so no need for tourist mode in the menu. The sat-nav element also only appears to be coupled to moveable lighting, like the Matrix lamps which always look at sat-nav data, even in the UK. This is what enables them to dip as you enter towns and villages, as well as the corner peek function.

There was a post on another forum where an A6 owner had moved to France. He had initially been told the lamps adjusted with sat-nav but his car then failed the French MOT. After a lot of bother he discovered that the beams were indeed flat and the car didn't use the navigation system. When he took his car to another test station they confirmed this. They did have to adjust the lamps down slightly but it passed.

Thank you for that Bob. I’ll be driving up to Caen tomorrow for the night boat so we’ll see how the beams look. I have led matrix lights on my Tiguan and though it is a sophisticated system, it is often too slow to react and I much prefer the halogen lights on the A5.

I also spend a lot of my time abroad. I work for a German company but I live in New York. I have to go to Germany in order to complete different tasks and I usually spend around three months of the year there. I don't have a car so I travel by train. I use DB Fahrplan - Deutsche Bahn Fahrplanauskunft to see when the next train will come and sure enough the train arrives at my station at the exact time that is shown on the app. I got used to it but I get homesick after a few weeks in Germany.

I think people on the forum gave you enough helpful advice about your question. I hope your car will be a great tool for traveling the world. I like traveling and exploring new places. I have long wanted to visit the Czech Republic and learn the culture and history of this country. Of course, the first thing I did was to visit the capital. After seeing the architecture of the city and feeling its atmosphere, Prague became one of my favorite places I have ever been. If you plan to visit Prague, I advise you to take free city tours. At https://www.freetour.com/prague, you can check out the options.

I've never thought about such things before. Does anyone know if similar problems may arise when traveling to Costa Rica?

I think this problem is still solvable, but it seems quite difficult to get used to living for six months in right-hand traffic mode and then another half a year in left-hand traffic mode. I would be scared of such a prospect because it seems to me it's easy to get confused while driving and forget which country you are in. As for Costa Rica, traffic on the roads here is right-hand. When we went on tour from www.CostaRicaFocus.com then our driver very kindly agreed to share some of the subtleties of the driving in this country. By the way, driving a car in Costa Rica is much easier than in most countries.