a suspiciously high number of Audi owners seem to have broken front surround cameras due to suspected rock chips. the dealer wanted more than $1500 and said the bumper must come off. firstly, why so many broken cameras with no other apparent damage? secondly, here’s a thought- make the external lens screw on to replace without having to replace the whole unit. I have no idea what happened to mine, but after a very cold night in upstate NY as opposed to my garage in Florida where my 12k miles nearly-new Q5 normally lives, I inexplicably had a shattered camera. I bought a used one from eBay, and it arrived with its own chip already preinstalled. nix that, returned it. ordered a new one from Audi dealer with online site (on sale, less than $650 with tax) and installed it myself. See video. The worst frustration was getting the plastic bracket back in place below the ear of plastic at the top of the opening that is part of the inner grille shell. It takes wiggling, a lot of colorful language and perseverance, but it can be done.
i didn’t align it- dealer claims it must be done but I laid a long flat object in front of the car (evenly spaced from wheels) and it lined up well with the new camera projected proximity line in the MMI image. Dealer says the tiniest difference in how the camera seats forces alignment. Yeah. And yet, I can flex the grille in by applying pressure with my hand. So a grille that flexes doesn’t cause tiny misalignments? What about when the car has been parked in uneven sun for hours? any engineer can call BS on that.
The seat for the camera is solid and had no play at all. I know the behind-windshield camera is a whole different ballgame, and apparently has an alignment plate with adjusting screws. This camera does not. it simply seats based on the shoulders of the rectangular base and then the bracket holds it firmly in place based on an unadjustable seat.
I'm not telling you to ignore the alignment, but i see absolutely nothing in the MMI image that suggests it’s necessary for this grille camera. My lane keeping works as well as it did, pre-sense seems fine, and I’m not paying close to a grand to realign the whole system.
when I installed, I was worried about disconnecting a registered electronic component and then getting a dash lit up with error messages, so I left the car undisturbed with the hood up overnight and didn’t touch the my Audi app on my phone. i didn’t even open a door on the car until the new camera was in. I did nothing that would wake the car up. It seemed to work. Also, when I ordered the part, I gave the dealer my VIN to be sure I had the right part.
Whether it was because the car was in hibernation mode or that the part doesn’t require registration through OBD, I don’t know, but this worked for me. I apologize that i don’t have video of the actual replacement process, but it takes two hands at every step with the screws and bracket, and I haven’t got a go-pro or assistant. I don’t know whether this works for other years, but strongly suspect it does at least for this series.