Just returned from a business trip to Germany, where I had a new A6 Avant rental. Drove it quite a bit, including some really fast cruising on the Autobahn. Since there is quite a bit of similarity between the A6 and our A7s, thought I’d share my experience.

The A6 was practically brand new (200 km) when I picked it up at the rental counter at the Frankfurt airport. It was a V6 TDI with a DSG-like 7-speed automated manual. It had the typical NAV etc. Manual but comfortable seats. Seems like I could adjust the seat more finely with this manual system than I can with our power seats. Now about the driving experience.

This car was FAST. I have driven quite extensively on the Autobahn, in a variety of cars, ranging from POS econoboxes to Audis, Mercs, and BMWs. This car was as fast as any I’ve ever driven. It got up to 200+ kph very, very quickly, and once there it cruised effortlessly. Very quiet and glued to the road. Autobahn traffic is pretty heavy these days, so it’s becoming harder and harder to do a high speed run, but I had a chance one late afternoon to take it up to 243 kph (150 mph). It was still accelerating, but I had to slow down for traffic. German sedans are speed-limited to 155 mph (250 kph), and I ‘m sure it would go that fast. What was amazing was how stable it was at that speed. While this is not Porsche speed, it was really hauling the mail!

The transmission was quite nice. Felt a lot like the DSG in my Golf TDI, but smoother and 7 speeds. Very quick shifts, up or down. I let it shift on its own, because there was no extra performance to be gained by shifting manually (or so it seemed –seat of the pants). The TDI diesel was awesome. My experience with diesels is that they have gobs of torque at low revs, but run out of breath at high revs. The transmission and gearing on this car was so well engineered that you had the low-end torque and the top end speed. Plus excellent mileage.

I had a couple of experiences that were interesting. As I was getting on the on-ramp of the Autobahn one day, two Porsche 911s came flying-by. I do mean flying, because I tried to chase them down and went up to 150 mph but they were long gone. Another amusing experience was getting passed by a MINI Cooper S convertible at around 130 mph, as I was accelerating up to speed. I eventually went around him, but I was surprised to see one going that fast (even though my son owns a MINI Cooper S convertible, and I know it’ll do 130+ mph). BTW, the MINI had its top up.

I have another trip to Germany next month . . .

 

Thanks for the impressions - driving on the autobahn has become more crowded as you mention - the least crowded I had was while still a student, unfortunately in a Citroen 2CV, where we only picked up speed when going downhill!