Matt Daniels

I'm finally reviewing the A8L that I was suppose to have a month and a half ago. Today at lunch I decided to blast up one of my favorite nearby canyons and on the way back down I actually started to get car sick. I guess I should have slowed down a bit around all of those curves. :-) On the way up the canyon I drove with ESP on, and on the way down I turned it off. I actually liked the feeling of the car better without ESP, I felt a little more contact with the road.

But I'm happy to report that this A8 L is an awsome machine. I was worried at first that it might not quite be my "style", since I'm only 27 and I'm definitly not who this car is marketed for, but I'm actually quite comfortable driving it. It's not the "old man" boat I was expecting.

This car has the 17" 5-spoke wheels on it, with absolutely horrible Continental touring tires. I think some new high-performance tires would really help out this car.

I also love the engine in this car. Very, very smooth all the way through the power band. The low end could use more power, but maybe that's just the result of the Tip transmission. I took a trip to Dinosaur National monument on Saturday, which is a 3+ hour drive one way, and the car was great. No problem passing people the entire way there. This car is even harder to do the speed limit in than some of the other Audi's I've reviewed lately. My 5 year old daughter likes this car *much* more than my A4 Avant. She actually has room to spread out a little (even in her booster seat) and really digs the manual window shades in the rear doors.

Now, if I only had $70k to spare to actually by this car to be my family car. Oh well, maybe in about 10 years or so.




One problem though: the automatic rear window shade seems to get caught on something and does not go up. I've only been able to get the shade to go up once, and that was a couple of days ago. Since then it hasn't gone up no matter how much I try, I've even looked to see if it's getting caught on something, but can't see anything. Any suggestions on getting it to go up?<p>Matt Daniels
AudiWorld Creative Editor
<a href="/matt/1.html" target="_top">'00 A4 1.8T Avant</a>
<a href="/matt/2.html" target="_top">'86 4000 CS quattro</a>
<b>Past:</b> <a href="/matt/3.html" target="_top">1993 90S</a>

valium

:-)

Jon

Bill Mills VA

Hey Matt-

I have a '97 A8 and the rear window shade was stuck in the retracted position when I bought the car in September of last year. Although the car was two years old, it only had 8,900 miles on it. When the shade was repaired in October of last year the service ticket/invoice indicated the technician "unjambed" the shade. Between October of '99 and May of '00 the shade did not see much use but it failed again in early May. I had my car in last week for service and the window shade was one of the fix it items. There is now a new window shade and control switch on order for my car so you maybe able to get a tech at your local Audi dealer to tell you how to "unjamb" the shade but it may not stay that way for long. Considering the 3 model year gap between your test car and my car I am now wondering how long the replacement shade will last. Anyone else out there having this albeit minor but apparently on going problem?

Bill Mills
'97A8q