I have been away for a few days enjoying the car so i have not had a chance to update everyone on my experiences so here they are so far!
I picked up the car this past week (monday) and things went smoothly. The only thing that was not up to snuff was that there were a few functions of the MMI that were not available under the Car Menu -Systems sub-menu. When I picked up the car the service dept was already closed so I sceduled an appointment to drop off the car on Wednesday. I wanted to check out the car for a day before I brought it in for the first time. When I dropped the car off on Wednesday afternoon there was a nice black Allroad warmed up and waiting for me to drive away. Very nice. I did not have a chance to get the car on Thursday so I picked it up Friday afternoon --the service technician came out to speak to me and explained that the MMI simply needed to be reset and all functions are now operable. I drove the car all weekend and with 600 miles on the car no problems yet. The car is very smooth, quite solid and can I can cruise all day without getting too tired. I have got about 21.5 mpg with some city and alot of highway driving so far. I expect better with more highway driving.

I have a Night Blue/Amaretto combination with the following options: 18" wheels, convenience package, solar sunroof, massaging seats, cold weather package, and front & rear parktronic.

I had the dealer install my Valentine 1 with the concealed display placed in the ash tray. This is on a switched outlet and works great, I can close the ash tray door too.

I also had the dealer remove the rear seat headrests, which require removing the rear seats because there is not enough clearance to fully extend the headrests out without hitting the headliner. The reason I did this was to be able to see out ouf the rear window without the visual impairment caused by them. I can assure you it is much nicer to be able to see out of the rear window than not!

The last thing I did was to de-badge the car removing the "A8L, 4.2 , quattro" badges leaving only the Audi rings on the back of the car. I really like this look --very neat and clean.

I will post more photos as soon as I get the car cleaned up from its road trip this weekend and the sun shines again.

My only complaints so far are about the definite spedometer error which reads about 4 MPH faster than the actual speed of the car--perhaps this can be addressed at the dealer, the phone integration issues--I opted not to get the v60 and try the built in phone--so far so good with this as I programmed in the 20 numbers it will store.

Does anyone know what "one touch memory" is? The MMI says it is not installed.

I will post photos soon. Now I know why most everyone is so happy who is lucky enough to own and drive one of these fine automobiles!

 

Jim, the car sounds great and your gas mileage also sounds terrific. I may be wrong but I believe that the "one touch memory" is what they call fingerprint and it identifies the driver for his particular preferences. Consider the 4 mph + on the speedo a second radar detector! Enjoy.


greenie 6625


04 A8L silver/sabre

 

How did the rear seats look afterwards? Was the leather still look tight? When I had a fuel sender recall done on my A6, where they had to remove the seats to do the work, the seats did quite look the same. The leather just looked like it had been stretched a bit, then relaxed.

I look forward to seeing some photos of the debadging, it ought to look sweet on the night blue.

As for the speedometer error; the engineer side of me feels that it should be very accurate; on the other hand, travelling that little bit slower than you think may help when encountering radar traps.

Have you had a chance to see how well your solar roof works? I had the opportunity to test it yesterday, I can definately feel a difference.

 

Thanks for your info. My 04 A8L was picked up last Wednesday the 22 and I have about 400 miles. No problems so far. I have tested the speedometer with a stop watch and keeping a constant speed with the cruise on flat interstate between mileage markers. Keeping a steady 80 MPH it took 48 seconds to cover 1 mile (actual speed 75) and it took 52 seconds with 75 mph set on the cruise wihich is actually 69.2 mph. My calculations shows the speedo off by 5 mph on the conservative side. I have 18" all season tires. The easy way to check your speedo is to get a stopwatch and set your cruise at 60, 65,70,75 and 80 and and get an exact time with the stopwatch on the interstate between mileage markers. By using a calculator you can get the speed easily. Just take 3600 and divide by the seconds to go 1 mile and you get the speed in mph. I.E. 3600/60=60 MPH 3600/48=75 MPH.

 

It's all in the eye of the beholder!