BluLytNin

Info on the Car:
2001 Santorin S4
6 speed manual
Onyx Int.
Cold/Bose/Premium Opt's
Check this out...I'm rolling on Pilot Sports :-))
She was 21mi young when I picked her up :-)

I'll spare you the boring sequences at the dealership, except for one. When the dealer went through the "How to's" with the car, he forgot/didn't realize the car was in gear...started the car, released the clutch, "chirp" and my baby nearly tongue kissed the concrete wall in front of her ("she" was in the garage at the time). Now this all happened while I was conversing with my friend (his title may change, you will find out why, later on.) and when I heard "her" jump, I turned around so fast I could have given myself a whiplash. When the dealer got out the car, I had a look on my face that said "WTF are you doing?" He sarcastically said, "I thought I would give your car a complimentary dent free of charge" ... I smiled and said no thanks, but I was thinking "Oh really, how 'bout I politely dent your face" Well, after another 15 mins of "How to blah blah blah" I was on my way home. What a better way to break in my new baby by driving in GWB and Cross Bronx Expwy traffic (for all you NY/NJ/CT people).
I finally made it home a little over 2 hours, a normal trip would have taken much less than an hour. When I pulled into the driveway, my mom came out shortly thereafter. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for me to change my mom's opinion on Audi cars, she believes BMW's are great (When I told her I was getting an S4, she said "Don't you think BMW's are nice cars, I told her this Audi is nicer ;-) ). I told my GF to hit the backseat and my mom took over the front passenger seat (I'll skip the "gawking over the interior" part). As we were driving around the neighborhood, I tried to let my passengers get the feeling of the "elements" that MAKE the S. I drove down this smooth road that has shallow dips to let them get a taste of the suspension. While driving down this road, I made a maneuver around an elevated sewer cap and then hit a patch of mid-construction pavement (rough road). This sequence was followed by a comment from mom..."wow this car is sturdy, it handles well". I was thinking, "Yeah, she's biting...now it's time to reel her in"... so do you guys know what I did next to show her one of the best features of the S ... that's right I turned UP the volume on the BOSE stereo (just kidding)... I turned down this road which has a good stretch of distance between stoplights. When I hit that road, I hit the gas...I took it a little easy in 1st, slide it into 2nd gave it a little more gas and then up into 3rd. (shifting at 4K SUX) The first words out my mom's mouth were "You better not get yourself into anymore trouble with this car" (awaiting a court date for a ticket I got in Feb.) followed by "okay, let's go home, I have things to do........but this IS a nice car".

Action Scene 1:

After I dropped my mom off, I called my "friend" (I use that term loosely) who gave me a ride to the dealership and told him to come outside. (Mistake #1) I took over the front passenger seat and when he came out, signaled him to hit the driver's seat. Now something should have told me that this wasn't the smartest of my ideas, being that I witnessed his driving when he had his RX-7 a couple of years ago ... and the way we used to "play" when driving our cars. When he got in, I told him to keep it under 4K, I want to break it in properly...no response. He got wood over the 6 Spd, adjusted the seat and we were off. He took it easy going down his street b/c there is a speed bump (thank God) but after that his right foot became attracted to the floor board and got it up to ~6K in 1st before we reached the end of the block. I YELLED, "Kev, CHILL OUT...KEEP IT UNDER 4K"...no response. Made a turn to go up the same smooth road...1st 6K, 2nd 5.5K and thank Jesus we approached a stop sign before we hit any considerable speed...but that relief didn't last too long b/c we were off once again... same sequence.
At this time I had two thoughts in my head, (keep in mind, this road has intersecting side streets which end with stop signs, and who really comes to a full stop in NYC) "Great I'm gonna die and I only had the car for a few hours" and "At least I'll die happy, cuz this $h1T feels F'ing GREAT!!" After we got off that road, I said to myself "Ok, maybe it's time to put on my seat belt". Now, this "friend" of mine made a comment about getting on the Hutchinson River Pkwy to "open" it up and I said "Yeah, Ok" as in "Think Again!". But being that I was anxious to see what this baby could do, I said in a reluctant voice "Ok Kev, let's go to the Hutch" (Mistake #2). With the biggest smile you could imagine, he said "Oh $h1T". Just before we got on the Hutch, we passed a diner and in the parking lot....guess what we saw...another S (more on that later). We made the loop to get on the Hutch and we were off... we couldn't really get any straight line speed b/c there were a few cars on at the time...got off the pkwy ~1.5mi down and got back on in the opposite direction (much less populated). 2nd 6.5K, 3rd 6K, 4th I stopped looking at the dash and started looking at my death (I tried to write my last will and testimony on the palm of my hand, but it's hard to do when they're sweaty). He shifted into 5th and thinking that was it, he put it into 6th...I thought "Huh?!?"...looked down at the speedo and the damn thing read 1XX MPH, Friggin guy broke 100MPH in MY CAR BEFORE ME! He didnt get much in 6th since we had to brake for our exit. My "friend" climaxed, I experienced heart murmurs and my GF was permanently pressed into the back seat.
We made our way back to the diner at a much much much lower speed, pulled into the lot and crept up to the Nogaro S parked along with an Integra (positioned in a V shape, as if they were taking pictures of their cars) No sooner did the owner (about my age) come out along with his Integra friend and said "Nice Car!" ... I gave him a thumbs up (felt kinda lame doing it from the passenger side though) then I said to myself, "Huh? Could this be my first sign of Audi Luv" Well my "friend" drove home and he thanked me for the ride and said he wouldn't need to call his girl later that night.


Action Scene 2: (Are you guys still with me......good)

Now I'm driving with my GF trying to put miles on like there's no tomorrow, I ask her if she wants to SEE where I work. Normally I wouldn't ask this, as it is a 40+ minute drive, but hey, I have a brand new S and my foot is itching for her to reach 1K (although it probably wouldn't matter now :-| ). She says yes, and we're off. Now at one point I'm travelling NB on the Saw Mill River Pkwy (2 lanes) and I reach a stoplight...the last friggin one before continuous pleasure. At the stoplight a Caravan is beside me and some mid 90's sports car was behind me (couldn't tell, it was dark as hell out there). Light goes green and I take my sweet time getting the car going. Mr Sports Car Man decides to ride my a$$ as I start moving, and I continue at my own leisure. The caravan pulls ahead and Mr Sports Car man decides to try and get around me and moves over into the other lane. He speeds up and I decide to be a *****, since Mr Sports Car Man wanted to ride my a$$, and speed up so that he has no room to get around me. Mr Sports Car Man didn't like that and decides to get back into my lane and ride my a$$ again (I'm talking about 3-4 ft between us). So I say this little "b1tch" wants to play, huh...I give it some gas to get some breathing room and Mr Sports Car Man got right back on me. Throw it into 3rd, leave him, but wait this sucker wants more...he gets on my a$$ AGAIN!! This time he slides out from behind me and tries to pass. Too bad for him that wasn't going to happen. I was trying to be fairly easy on the car, but hard on Mr Sports Car Man (guess which didn't happen...I'm sorry, but shifting at 4K wasn't enough to insult Mr Sports Car Man, so I brought it up to ~5K...still not enough, but it let Mr Sports Car Man know that he wouldn't get one over on this Audi). I "let" him get almost even then put about 1.5 - 2 car lengths on Mr Sports Car Man (once again not doing such a great job of being "fairly" easy) This guy did not want to quit, but he definitely lost b/c as soon as we were approaching a slight turn, he backed off real quick (didnt even take 10 secs for him to totally disappear from my rear view). Now to take these turns at speed, you have to "know" the road and driving that sucker 5 days a week I know what to expect. After laying the Smack down, I decided to get off it being that it was like Pitch Black on that road and I didnt want to test ESP just yet. I'll skip the part about driving around the complex at work...I'll just say I missed a perfect Photo Op.
I got to take "her" through my favorite twisty (Long Ridge Rd. between Bedford, NY and Stamford, CT). "To the guy in the Silver S4 that was on this road around 11:30PM - 12:00AM, maybe we could do a drive sometime." I was able to pull over, back into someone's driveway and watch a couple of deer out for a late night snack (you don't see too much of that in the big city). First I've seen the auto-leveling of the xenons, COOL!!
I also had a little fun (Leap Frog) with a Jetta VR6 on I-95. Those things are pretty quick (I think he had about 3 passengers), but it could be that I was in 6th the whole time. Well that was it for the first night ~130 miles, I have more stories from the 2nd night and 3rd day if you care to hear about it, I promise it will be much less than this tale ;-)

If any of you NY/NJ/CT area guys wanna hook up for a little drive or whatever, give me a shout. And if you have made it this far, you must be terribly bored or found my story somewhat interesting.

To all the guys & gals I met yesterday, it was nice meeting you all...although for some reason the names went in one ear and came out the other. I guess this weekend has been a bit too much for me. If you don't mind if you could post your name along with the car you were driving, that would work, I remember faces & cars, not faces & names...go figure.

This car has been everything I've wanted and more than I've expected. I thank you guys for pointing out how great this car "& the drivers" can be.


Only 470 more miles to go.....damn!

Ferris TMK

As for hitting 6K on the revs no worries. Just make sure not to lug it. Also try not to go WOT till after a couple hundred miles. It's best to vary revs when breaking in...

BluLytNin

BTW, what do you mean by don't lug it...do not drive around in the "very" low RPM range??

Ferris TMK

the best example of lugging is:

driving around in 6th at ~40mph(low revs) and flooring it. High load at low revs is basically lugging it. It's better to have high revs and low loads then low revs and high loads.