CNET does the A6 3.0T
05-24-2009, 05:29 PM
#21
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I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I haven't heard of any complaints about the R8, even from ex or existing Porsche owners. The only issues I know of is the jerkiness of the s-tronic. For the V10 to be held in the same league as the Gallardo, though ultimately less raw says very much.
I had the TTS for 4 days, the S5 for 5 days, and the RS6 for 4 days, and it was only the latter that was soft. And that was including a session at the Malaysian Sepang F1 track.
On your statement of the S4 (B7 I presume) being soft, R&T love the car. The S5 outruns a stock 335, even without the sport differential.
The TTS has a new aluminium frame, and is no longer on the GTi chassis. Handles marvellously.
I had the TTS for 4 days, the S5 for 5 days, and the RS6 for 4 days, and it was only the latter that was soft. And that was including a session at the Malaysian Sepang F1 track.
On your statement of the S4 (B7 I presume) being soft, R&T love the car. The S5 outruns a stock 335, even without the sport differential.
The TTS has a new aluminium frame, and is no longer on the GTi chassis. Handles marvellously.
05-25-2009, 01:38 AM
#22
I didn't say the S4 was soft, that was not the issue at all, it just failed in every area, it was neither one thing or another, and after living with it for 3 weeks and doing 3000 miles I realised just how badly.
I feel I better explain now, so......
I had come from a BMW 535d Sport touring which was reampped to 344bhp and 750nm of torque and an M3 CSL, which is arguably BMW most driver focused car to date, both of them beautifully balanced and a joy to drive. I wanted to replaced it with something I could use and enjoy on a daily basis but was also fun.
I am a big Audi fan and it was the first time in over 10 years when we didn't have one on the drive, so the S4 avant was an obvious choice.
I bought the car and was chuffed to bits with it, looked very nice and a lovely interior..
It was a 2005 model and a year old and was less than half the price, so it was actually really cheap motoring too which was a real bonus as it meant I was able to buy an E30 325i to do up as a bit of fun, which I had always wanted to do.
Plus we had a 120d M-Sport as well, which is probably the best all round car I have owned, simply stunning to drive, looks different and really practical. Took it down through France, over the Alps, through Switzerland into Italy and then across southern france and back home to the UK, 3 weeks and 4000 miles, and the thing didn't miss a beat, 210bhp chipped with 550nm of toque so quicker than my 3.2 Quattro and still returned 48mpg. As I say, a nearly perfect car, and it was only due to having our second child along with a teenage daughter and a Weimeraner that is 40 kilos that we swapped it for a 335i sport touring in the end.
But, as I was saying, I REALLY wanted to love the S4 as it was costing me nothing really and looked stunning. However....
The first thing I noticed was the pedals, the brake and clutch were so much higher than the gas that I used to get cramp in my shin when I was in heavy traffic or after I had been driving for an hour or so, adjust the seat to get the clutch and brake right and I couldn't put the gas down fully!
The next thing was the Recaros, after the sport seats in the BMW and the buckets in the CSL they were not that comfy, I could not raise the front high enough under my thigh, I like having me knees higher than my butt. However I'm sure I would get used to that or add something under the rail to sort it so not a problem.
But the first thing that really worried me was the balance of the car, or rather lack of it, I had never noticed before with any of my Audis, but after a spell in BMWs and coming back it hit home.....hard!
The nose was scarily heavy, so much so I thought something was up with the car and took it in to my dealer to look at, someone came out with me and laughed and said "what do you expect with that steel V8 lump in front of the front axle?!"
I had sort of thought when people said it they were saying it in jest, but it really is in front of the axle, making it so nose heavy that the undertsteer was verging on scary.
He took me out in his car that had an RS4 rear sway bar and that helped a little, so I fitted it to mine, but god, you had to fight to get it round corners when pushing on, which didn't inspire confidence at all.
The other thing was the gearing, now I understand why they did this as they wanted to get the 0-60mph times down, but they shouldn't have bothered. I'm talking about the final drive.
3.9 final drive is just not right for this car at all, you are constantly swapping cogs, 1st is almost useless and most people in the UK say they mainly use 2nd, 4th and 6th and then say it is because the V8 has so much power that that is all that is needed, yeah right!
Apart from having such a short time between gears it also means that when crusing at 90mph the car is doing 4500rpm and 16mpg, if it had a 3.6 final drive it would be at 2500rpm and doing 26mpg, big difference in consumption (when you do 30-40k miles a year and it is $9 a gallon that matters!) and more importantly it would be alot more relaxing for that type of driving.
You can do 148mph in 5th so why not make 6th an overdrive even?? that would have helped a lot.
I understand that the Auto does have a 3.6 final drive and that is why the consumption is much better.
I also thought it sounded crap. I bought the Miltek exhaust which improved things slightly, but was still pretty subtle for a V8.
If I had bought the auto I may have stuck with it longer, but I doubt it, the combo of trying to make such and unbalanced and nose heavy car sporty just meant it didn't work in any area what so ever as far as I was concerned. After a month I decided to sell it, the guy who bought it had an M5 and an X5, he had been on an Audi driving training weekend in the RS4 and fancied an Audi, he kept it for only 3 weeks saying exactly the same as me, he now has another X5.
I sold it and bought another M3, we swapped the 120d fro a 335i sport touring, now that is how to get things balanced, it was also a hell of a lot quicker in a straight line and destroyed the S4 when corners came into play, plus a remap got 365bhp out of it and made it very, very fast 4.7 seconds to 60mph every time.
We now have the 3.2 Quattro Avant as the family wagon, and I LOVE IT, it does everything a family wagon needs to. But then I don't expect it to handle well so I am not disappointed, it does what you expect it to, expect too much from an Audi and I think they disappoint, however, I don't think most owners care passed it looking good and giving off the right image.
You can tell by the amoungt of people who put 20" wheels on and then drop the car 4" as well, I understand why, but they are into cars in a different way to I am, which is great, as I would never do it but love to see it.
It is very difficult to type out things like the above without wanting to annoy people, which is not my intention, but for some reason Audi owners seem to be very defensive so if I have annoyed you I'm sorry, that was not meant to be the case.
I like cars, doesn't matter what the badge is, if it is a good car I like it, be it a Merc, BMW, Audi or whatever, what I hate in car circles is badge loyalty when people won't even test the competition, I just think that is so insular and you are doing yourself an injustice, get out there and try what the competition has to offer, you might be surprised, very surprised.
I feel I better explain now, so......
I had come from a BMW 535d Sport touring which was reampped to 344bhp and 750nm of torque and an M3 CSL, which is arguably BMW most driver focused car to date, both of them beautifully balanced and a joy to drive. I wanted to replaced it with something I could use and enjoy on a daily basis but was also fun.
I am a big Audi fan and it was the first time in over 10 years when we didn't have one on the drive, so the S4 avant was an obvious choice.
I bought the car and was chuffed to bits with it, looked very nice and a lovely interior..
It was a 2005 model and a year old and was less than half the price, so it was actually really cheap motoring too which was a real bonus as it meant I was able to buy an E30 325i to do up as a bit of fun, which I had always wanted to do.
Plus we had a 120d M-Sport as well, which is probably the best all round car I have owned, simply stunning to drive, looks different and really practical. Took it down through France, over the Alps, through Switzerland into Italy and then across southern france and back home to the UK, 3 weeks and 4000 miles, and the thing didn't miss a beat, 210bhp chipped with 550nm of toque so quicker than my 3.2 Quattro and still returned 48mpg. As I say, a nearly perfect car, and it was only due to having our second child along with a teenage daughter and a Weimeraner that is 40 kilos that we swapped it for a 335i sport touring in the end.
But, as I was saying, I REALLY wanted to love the S4 as it was costing me nothing really and looked stunning. However....
The first thing I noticed was the pedals, the brake and clutch were so much higher than the gas that I used to get cramp in my shin when I was in heavy traffic or after I had been driving for an hour or so, adjust the seat to get the clutch and brake right and I couldn't put the gas down fully!
The next thing was the Recaros, after the sport seats in the BMW and the buckets in the CSL they were not that comfy, I could not raise the front high enough under my thigh, I like having me knees higher than my butt. However I'm sure I would get used to that or add something under the rail to sort it so not a problem.
But the first thing that really worried me was the balance of the car, or rather lack of it, I had never noticed before with any of my Audis, but after a spell in BMWs and coming back it hit home.....hard!
The nose was scarily heavy, so much so I thought something was up with the car and took it in to my dealer to look at, someone came out with me and laughed and said "what do you expect with that steel V8 lump in front of the front axle?!"
I had sort of thought when people said it they were saying it in jest, but it really is in front of the axle, making it so nose heavy that the undertsteer was verging on scary.
He took me out in his car that had an RS4 rear sway bar and that helped a little, so I fitted it to mine, but god, you had to fight to get it round corners when pushing on, which didn't inspire confidence at all.
The other thing was the gearing, now I understand why they did this as they wanted to get the 0-60mph times down, but they shouldn't have bothered. I'm talking about the final drive.
3.9 final drive is just not right for this car at all, you are constantly swapping cogs, 1st is almost useless and most people in the UK say they mainly use 2nd, 4th and 6th and then say it is because the V8 has so much power that that is all that is needed, yeah right!
Apart from having such a short time between gears it also means that when crusing at 90mph the car is doing 4500rpm and 16mpg, if it had a 3.6 final drive it would be at 2500rpm and doing 26mpg, big difference in consumption (when you do 30-40k miles a year and it is $9 a gallon that matters!) and more importantly it would be alot more relaxing for that type of driving.
You can do 148mph in 5th so why not make 6th an overdrive even?? that would have helped a lot.
I understand that the Auto does have a 3.6 final drive and that is why the consumption is much better.
I also thought it sounded crap. I bought the Miltek exhaust which improved things slightly, but was still pretty subtle for a V8.
If I had bought the auto I may have stuck with it longer, but I doubt it, the combo of trying to make such and unbalanced and nose heavy car sporty just meant it didn't work in any area what so ever as far as I was concerned. After a month I decided to sell it, the guy who bought it had an M5 and an X5, he had been on an Audi driving training weekend in the RS4 and fancied an Audi, he kept it for only 3 weeks saying exactly the same as me, he now has another X5.
I sold it and bought another M3, we swapped the 120d fro a 335i sport touring, now that is how to get things balanced, it was also a hell of a lot quicker in a straight line and destroyed the S4 when corners came into play, plus a remap got 365bhp out of it and made it very, very fast 4.7 seconds to 60mph every time.
We now have the 3.2 Quattro Avant as the family wagon, and I LOVE IT, it does everything a family wagon needs to. But then I don't expect it to handle well so I am not disappointed, it does what you expect it to, expect too much from an Audi and I think they disappoint, however, I don't think most owners care passed it looking good and giving off the right image.
You can tell by the amoungt of people who put 20" wheels on and then drop the car 4" as well, I understand why, but they are into cars in a different way to I am, which is great, as I would never do it but love to see it.
It is very difficult to type out things like the above without wanting to annoy people, which is not my intention, but for some reason Audi owners seem to be very defensive so if I have annoyed you I'm sorry, that was not meant to be the case.
I like cars, doesn't matter what the badge is, if it is a good car I like it, be it a Merc, BMW, Audi or whatever, what I hate in car circles is badge loyalty when people won't even test the competition, I just think that is so insular and you are doing yourself an injustice, get out there and try what the competition has to offer, you might be surprised, very surprised.
I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I haven't heard of any complaints about the R8, even from ex or existing Porsche owners. The only issues I know of is the jerkiness of the s-tronic. For the V10 to be held in the same league as the Gallardo, though ultimately less raw says very much.
I had the TTS for 4 days, the S5 for 5 days, and the RS6 for 4 days, and it was only the latter that was soft. And that was including a session at the Malaysian Sepang F1 track.
On your statement of the S4 (B7 I presume) being soft, R&T love the car. The S5 outruns a stock 335, even without the sport differential.
The TTS has a new aluminium frame, and is no longer on the GTi chassis. Handles marvellously.
I had the TTS for 4 days, the S5 for 5 days, and the RS6 for 4 days, and it was only the latter that was soft. And that was including a session at the Malaysian Sepang F1 track.
On your statement of the S4 (B7 I presume) being soft, R&T love the car. The S5 outruns a stock 335, even without the sport differential.
The TTS has a new aluminium frame, and is no longer on the GTi chassis. Handles marvellously.
05-25-2009, 05:39 PM
#23
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I like cars, doesn't matter what the badge is, if it is a good car I like it, be it a Merc, BMW, Audi or whatever, what I hate in car circles is badge loyalty when people won't even test the competition, I just think that is so insular and you are doing yourself an injustice, get out there and try what the competition has to offer, you might be surprised, very surprised.
I agree that the E46 M3 was about the best handling car around, but compare that to an RS4 and not an S4.
For all it's handling prowess and higher bhp, Motor Trend has the S6, which has a huge V10 in front of the axle very close to the M5.
http://www.motortrend.com/multimedia...vrt/index.html
As I said, it's a matter of opinion. I've modded my car, and am quicker than a 241 bhp 530, and the handling's probably closer, but the Audi still understeers. I can keep up with that car on twisties quite easily, but at no point in time will I say that it out handles the BMW.
05-26-2009, 10:03 AM
#24
AudiWorld Super User
Depends on what you compare it to. If you compare it to a BMW 5 series, which is the best handling car in the market at this price range, then yes the A6 is luxury mile munchers. If you compare it to a Lexus, then the A6 is a driver's car. Anyways, if you take all the luxury sedans price below the $60,000 range, the A6 is right up there near the top as far as handling.
05-26-2009, 11:18 AM
#25
That wasn't aimed at you, I can see your car list in your sig.
It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do hear alot of people who drive a certain brand, BMW included, that they wouldn't even consider another marque, and many who don't even want to test drive them and I think that is such a shame.
I was like that with bikes, kept saying that they didn't interest me at all, would never want one etc.
Took my brothers Yamaha YZ MX bike the other day, first time on a bike ever and I am 36 this year, and I am now smitten. I can't believe I have denined myself that pleasure in life, especially as I am probably 18 years too late when it comes to MX (physically I mean!
). However, I am hoping to get a KTM EXC ready for the summer.
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