Audi® Service Information & More
Milito’s has Serviced Audi® in Chicago since 1968.
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Along with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Audi is one of the three best luxury automobile manufacturers in the world. They’ve navigated their way through two world wars, several recessions — including the great depression and the financial crisis of 2007 — as well as several mergers that could have taken down a lesser company.
Today, despite changing customer tastes and competition, the business has emerged stronger than ever. They are not only respectful of their customer and business partners, but also respectful of the environment through sustainable powertrain options and fully electric automobiles.
In 2017, they had a record-breaking year — increasing its global sales for the eighth year in a row, selling around 1,878,100 vehicles.
And they show no signs of slowing down.
Who Is Buying an Audi?
In the U.S. young professionals are a key demographic for Audi, with more than 50% of their sales going to Gen X and Gen Y age customers. This is thought to be due to the fact that although the average price point has jumped from $43,000 to $52,000 since 2010, compared to the competition.
Specifically, the majority of Audi owners are male, between the ages of 29-45, with a college degree and a median household income of around $100,000.
Audis are still considered an affordable luxury vehicle.
While the Audi is mostly a well-oiled machine with only minimal owner complaints, no vehicle is perfect, and there are a few issues that may need to be addressed.
All of these problems and more can be fixed by the experienced Audi service mechanics at Milito’s Auto Repair in Chicago.
If you’re looking for a used Audi yourself, click to see used Audi vehicles for sale in the Chicago area.
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If you’re looking for a luxury car but don’t want to pay for a brand new model, a used Audi is the way to go.
Here are five things that you should do:
The Audi Aicon has a total of four electric motors located in the area of the front and rear axles, and because of a high-voltage system with 800 volts, the Aicon’s battery unit can be charged to 80 percent of capacity in less than 30 minutes. All the displays and controls are missing — until the driver enters, and illuminated lines of LEDs set colorful accents in the area of the doors.
The MyAudi feature gives you access to important vehicle data, lets you manage your data via the portal or app, and allows you to set up your services individually. You can also make settings for your services or send your personal navigation destinations to your Audi.
The Audi e-Tron has two electric motors that quickly accelerate the electric SUV from zero to 100 km/h with performance comparable to a sports car. The navigation system makes intelligent destination suggestions based on previous routes, and you can control all charging processes (as well as pre-heating/pre-cooling) via your smartphone with the myAudi app.
To find out when this automotive giant first came on the scene, you have to go all the way back to 1889 when August Horch — a former production manager for Karl Benz — decided he wanted to make cars with is own name.
In 1899 he joined up with 15 others and started a company in Germany that produced its first vehicle in 1901. But it wasn’t a smooth ride at all. In 1909, the Board of Directors forced Horch out of the company that he had been first and foremost in creating.
Not deterred, he set up another business. Given that the name Horch was already in use, he chose Audi – Latin for ‘Hear’ or ‘Listen.’
Audi as we now know it launched their first car in 1910 — the Audi Type A Sport-Phaeton, with only 140 ever produced. It was a success, particularly in sporting events, and the Type B was also launched that year. Horch began entering his vehicles in races and won the prestigious International Austrian Alpine Run three years in a row.
The company quickly became a favorite of German drivers, but the First World War required the company to manufacture vehicles used in many military campaigns. When the war was over, the company incurred heavy losses and struggled to remain profitable, much less at the level they were performing before the war.
The Merger
In 1920, August Horch left the company for a position in the Ministry of Transport, but remained a member of the board of trustees for Audi. The next year they became the first car manufacturer to present a production car with left-hand drive, which was desirable, as it was considered to provide a better view of oncoming traffic.
To further develop – and consolidate – Audi merged with DKW, Horch and Wanderer in 1932 and in so doing launched the iconic four-ring badge emblem. The business, named Auto Union, would set the foundations of modern motoring as we know it.
The same year, Audi introduced the world’s first volume-built car with front-wheel-drive. By the end of the ‘30s, you could find Audis in Grand Prix races, all while introducing its first 16-cylinder racing car, and beginning to conduct systematic rollover and crash tests.
World War II and Beyond
With the new merger and company in place, technology became the focal point for Audi, which has remained central to the company’s corporate identity. In the early days of the Auto Union era, Audi became the first European car company to offer a six-cylinder-engine, front wheel drive model — the Audi Front.
But like many German manufacturing companies, the onset of World War II saw Auto Union plants retooled for military production. They began producing armoured cars for the military, which made them targets for Allied bombing. This took a toll on production, and in 1945, the US Army raid caused great damage to Audi’s plant.
In fact, it was only a couple of years later that factories were dismantled as part of war reparations and Auto Union AG was removed from the commercial register. But that wouldn’t be the end. Audi began assembling pre-war models in 1949, renaming itself to Auto Union GmbH.
A few years later, Daimler-Benz took over the Auto Union. Then in 1964, Volkswagen AG once again acquired majority shares of Auto Union, and two years later that company became a fully-owned subsidiary of VW.
Audi Automobiles Today
The company would go on to develop four-wheel drive technology in the 1980’s. Named ‘Audi Quattro,’ this was the world’s first four-wheel drive sports coupe. The company’s official name was shortened to Audi AG, which also started their shift towards the luxury market. In 1987 the Audi put forward the Audi 90, which was considered much more elegant and superior to the Audi 80, which some saw as an “old person’s car.”
In 2006, the introduced the first 12-cylinder engine in the Audi Q7, and 2007 saw Audi become the first manufacturer to premiere the first headlight unit in the world that deployed LEDs for all of the front lighting functions — including daytime running lights, turn signals, and the dipped-beam and main-beam headlights.
They have continued to develop innovations such as diesel technology, aluminium bodies, the “multitronic” Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT), and SUVs that are both unique and extremely functional.
The company continues to look towards the future, not content to settle on past success. They continue to work on promoting the interests of the Audi customers, and the more than 90,000 employees around the globe.
August Horch, the founder of Audi, was a young German engineer who worked in shipbuilding before working under Karl Benz, founder of Mercedes-Benz car manufacturing company.
“Audi” in Latin means “listen.”
The four rings in the Audi logo represent the four companies of the Auto Union — Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wandered.
While the autonomous technology is still in the working stages,Audi decided to climb the Pikes Peak in their fully autonomous car named “Shelly”. Crazy as it sounds, the high-tech GPC enabled Audi TTS to scale the mountain without a driver, just 19 minutes short of the world record.
In 1938, Audi introduced a racecar called the Auto Union Type C that topped 268 mph.