My track drive in the new A8 (very long)
02-21-2003, 12:34 PM
#1
Audiworld Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 82
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My track drive in the new A8 (very long)
Well, I managed to get an hour behind the wheel of the new A8 today. So here's the juicy bits:
First I'd better say what I was comparing it with. My car's a 2000 model 4.2 Quattro Sport. The 2000 model had interior and exterior trim changes, but more importantly had a suspension rework and an extra 10 hp to take it to 310. The "Sport" tag is as I now understand it, exclusively a European variant. With it, you get the "S" suspension, sports seats, tip shifting on the sterring wheel, and few other bits & bobs - as KjellA has (I think) posted on this forum, the difference between the 4.2QSpt and the S8 is basically the additional 50 hp. I should also add that being a Euro car, the tranny will let you rev to the redline even in Drive. If you switch to tiptronic, you've still got the full spread of the engine band available, but you can drop down to the gear you want when you want. For anyone who's curious, there's a picture of the car that bottom of this post.
Second, the location. This was an Audi-organised event to separate high-end UK Audi owners from their cash. The car park was packed with A8s, S8s, S6s, at least one RS6 ... you get the idea. Apparently this thing's been running five days a week for two weeks. We were let loose on two parts of a car testing facility used by manufacturers: the alpine test track and the high speed bowl. The first is a 6 mile winding circuit, roughly divided into thirds. Each successive third is progressively steeper (the final third has a couple of 22% gradients), with hairpins (?switchbacks), blind crests, adverse cambers and so on. The bowl is a 2 mile circumference circular five lane banked track. The banking is set so that at 75 mph in lane 4, and 100 mph in lane 5, a car should track dead straight without hands on the wheel.
So, onto the cars. Cameras weren't allowed, but I managed to get a camera that clipped onto my cell phone in. The resolution isn't great, but all the cars pointing towards me are new A8s
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0015.jpg">
I had seen a new A8 in the flesh before Christmas at a presentation at a dealer. That was indoors, so it is quite hard to get a good idea of what it looks like in "real life". Having now had a chance to look at it properly, I can say with one caveat that it is a great looking car. The front end is unmistakably now part of a clearly themed Audi look. Whereas the present model looks graceful and elegant, the new car looks more muscular and solid. Interestingly, Audi also had a BMW 745 and an S Class Merc present. Of the three, there's no question that the Audi is the best looking car, and that's not just Audi-owner's bias. Next to the Audi, the Merc looks strangely stodgy. It looks like a boulevard cruiser that's been invited to a fight. The Beemer just looks like a joke. Before today I had already formed the view that the front and back looked like they had been designed by committees of people who were given a specific bit to design, but weren't allowed to know the theme of the design, or what anyone else came up with - hence the rather fussy and disjointed look to both ends. Next to the Audi, the BM just looks like someone's been messing around with Photoshop and got bored. BM need to do something with the look of that car, and fast.
The caveat is the back end of the new car. For my money, the back end of the present model is an absolute masterpiece of how to design the back end of a big car. Audi haven't quite pulled off the same trick twice in a row. I think the problem is three fold. First, the rear window is raked a bit too much, so that the boot (trunk) lid is just a bit too short (front to back) that gives the back end an "abrupt" look. Second, there is a big expanse of bodywork below the rear lights (and the fact that the rear lights are set so high on the body doesn't help this) giving the impression of a thick, bulky back end. Finally, there is a very distinct body line along the top edge of the boot, almost as if the boot lid itself is trying to extrude a lip-spoiler. This is a departure from the much smoother and more rounded back end on the present car. That said, I still think the back end is better looking than the BM or the S-class by a fair way.
The interior gratifyingly shares the characteristic I love about the present model's: it feels as if the whole thing has been carved out of a single piece of granite. Interior space is a bit of conundrum though. When I saw the car before Christmas, I thought the cockpit was cramped compared to the present car. When I got in today, I wasn't struck in the same way, and when I got back into my car, I didn't think "wow, this is roomy". However, there is something about the interior of the new car that it took me a while to put my finger on. The transmission tunnel is about 4-5 inches higher, and about 1.5 inches wider than the present car's. Also, whereas the present car has a near horizontal top to the transmission tunnel, meeting a near vertical centre instrument panel, the new car blends the two together more effectively. The impression, though, is that there is less space because what's fresh air in the old car is filled with transmission tunnel in the new car. Conversely, I found I had to stretch to reach a button on the far side of the screen, and I don't have to stretch to reach a similar point on the dash of my car, so maybe the impression is not entirely representative of the ergonomics of the new cabin.
I didn't bother working out the intricacies of the MMI system before setting off, which was a mistake. Bottom line is that it's not so intuitive that you can figure out how everything works while you're driving (believe me, I tried); in fact it wasn't that easy to work out how to adjust the volume of the radio (it's done from the steering wheel, and not as far as I could tell from the MMI interface). You need to sit down and work out you way around it first. From my fiddling around with it after the drive, it makes the present SatNavPlus system look pretty rudimentary; the navigation input is far more sophisticated; you can set car settings (such as which doors/boot you want to open on the central locking); and you can call up the owner's manual as an HTML file. It looks like there is a web browser as well, but that was not functional.
From the MMI you can set the adaptive air suspension. This has four settings: lift, comfort, automatic and dynamic. Lift is not quite Allroad high, but it sure looks funny when an A8 on the move has it. I didn't bother trying it; it's not available in any event at speeds over 50 mph. Nor did I try automatic (it seemed like a waste to do so), and I spent most time in dynamic. This has got to be single biggest advance over the existing car. It's amazing. You get a better ride quality than the current model, but very little body roll. On the alpine circuit the fast corners that there were were an absolute blast - the car felt rock solid and a lot smaller and lighter than it really is (to be fair, I think fast corners are a strong point of the present model too). But in the slower tighter corners, the suspension seems to remove the feeling that you've got a large unwieldy car to control - you come into the corner, point, and go - and handling is fairly neutral. There just isn't the feeling that I sometimes get in the present car at the "point" stage of having a lot of weight somewhere that I don't want it. Of course, it's still possible to out trick the system, but you have to be trying to screw things up to do it. For example, we had a go at a coned slalom course, running into it at around 50-60. The car flies through the cones, but at the end of the course the idea is to brake to a halt in a curve. If you stand on the brakes doing that, you get abs feedback and a slight understeer drift. I didn't run through the cones in the stopping area, and didn't see anyone else do so, but certainly didn't make the turn and stop at the same time either.
In the bowl I set the cruise at 110 mph, and played at switching between comfort and dynamic. The difference was quite surprising. The surface in the bowl is not great - concrete, I think. Dynamic does a good job of filtering out a lot of what would be mild vertical movement of the car, but switch to comfort and it's like you've just driven onto a newly and perfectly tarmaced stretch of road. If automatic gives you dynamic on the twisty bits and comfort on the straights, then it would be just about perfect.
Back to the driving. Transmission has D and S - the latter being a sportier version of D - more downshifts, more holding of revs before upshifts. I also noticed that the box will shift down to stop you labouring the engine (like the present setting on my car) and will change up if you're going to blow the rev needle into the red (unlike the present setting on my car - I think). It also has a slide over tip setting with shifting either using the stick or using the (perfectly weighted) paddles behind the steering wheel: left for down, right for up.
I tended to leave the car in tip and shift on the paddles. The road to the alpine circuit has a couple of roundabouts which are great for second gear blasting. That revealed pretty quickly the agility of the car. You can change direction fairly brutally if you wish, without massively upsetting the balance of the car - again the air suspension working well - and that means that you can blast out of the roundabouts much more effectively than you can in the present car (this is a "real life" comparison, since this is one of my favourite anti-social recreations on the public roads over here). The hairpins on the alpine were not a problem even with the paddle shifting. I found that because of the position of the paddles I tended to drive with hands at quarter to three, but I don't remember having to use much more than half a turn of lock (ie steering wheel upside down) even for the hairpins.
The alpine circuit has, we were told, a 55 speed limit. I took the view that they could chuck me off if they wanted to, so ignored the limit. This meant getting flagged by each of the four marshals on a single lap, but it also meant that I think I got a better idea of what the car could do.
I think on a subjective basis, there is absolutely no doubt that the car dynamically outperforms the present model by some way. In addition to the Quattro drivetrain giving the feel that the car is glued to the road laterally, the suspension in the new car gives the feeling that vertical movement is almost non-existent. It makes for great driving.
Braking is I think more effective than on the present car. Even allowing for the fact that the brakes on the new car were likely to be pretty new, and that mine have about 5000 miles on them, that was the first thing I noticed getting back into my car. The brakes felt effective, but you needed to work harder to get them onside. I tried a couple of emergency stops, and I think if you concentrated you could tell there was some braking assistance, but on the track they just felt firm and responsive.
The bowl has a 100 mph limit in lane 4, which was as high as we were allowed. In the interests of research, I eased it up to 125 mph. I took a quick snap holding the camera by ear - an unsuccessful attempt to emulate the marketing picture that was posted her a couple of days ago.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0014.jpg">
I'd say it is appreciably quieter than the present car at that sort of speed. The pro driver took me out later, and we were lapping at an indicated 155 mph in lane 5. She had to raise her voice a bit to speak, but I can't say I had to. Very impressive. She also took me out on a different concrete handling track for a couple of laps. Now I've been out with pro drivers on tracks before, so I knew what to expect. However, I was still pretty stunned. I've been taken round Brands Hatch in an Audi TT by a pro, and I can honestly say that this was highly comparable. The car is unbelievably quick, not just because of its grunt, but more because it's just so well-balanced and agile.
Bad points? Not many, that's for sure. There's the back end exterior, which I referred to, and which is largely subjective. Less subjective perhaps is the interior video screen. This pops up on command, which is all very nice to watch. However, it's a bit distracting. More so, I found, than the smaller monitor in my car, which is placed lower down. I think in the end I concluded that it was distracting precisely because once it has popped out, it spoils the line of the interior. I found myself popping it down, then needing to pull it up to fiddle around with the suspension, or the radio, or something else.
Bottom line? Well this is where is gets tricky. I don't drive my car and come away feeling that it's lacking something. In fact, I drive it and come away thinking it's the most complete car I've driven. The new model is certainly a fantastic car, but I found myself asking on the way home "How often would I drive on the road in such a way to exploit the additional abilities of the new car?" This is a concern driven partly by the current push by the UK Government to demonise driving and drivers - if you drive fast in the UK you'll lose your licence fast and be branded a dangerous criminal to boot, but that's not all of it. It is, I reminded myself, the same question I asked when deciding between an S8 and the (cheaper) A8 4.2Qsp.
So whilst I'd have no compunction about putting down my hard earned cash when I come to change my car, I don't think it offers enough of an edge in everyday driving over my present car to cause me to trade up immediately: this says as much, if not more about the present model than it does about the new one.
Oh, but it does have two cupholders in the front, which I don't have at the moment, so you never know...
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0013.1.jpg">
The car that lives to fight another day.
First I'd better say what I was comparing it with. My car's a 2000 model 4.2 Quattro Sport. The 2000 model had interior and exterior trim changes, but more importantly had a suspension rework and an extra 10 hp to take it to 310. The "Sport" tag is as I now understand it, exclusively a European variant. With it, you get the "S" suspension, sports seats, tip shifting on the sterring wheel, and few other bits & bobs - as KjellA has (I think) posted on this forum, the difference between the 4.2QSpt and the S8 is basically the additional 50 hp. I should also add that being a Euro car, the tranny will let you rev to the redline even in Drive. If you switch to tiptronic, you've still got the full spread of the engine band available, but you can drop down to the gear you want when you want. For anyone who's curious, there's a picture of the car that bottom of this post.
Second, the location. This was an Audi-organised event to separate high-end UK Audi owners from their cash. The car park was packed with A8s, S8s, S6s, at least one RS6 ... you get the idea. Apparently this thing's been running five days a week for two weeks. We were let loose on two parts of a car testing facility used by manufacturers: the alpine test track and the high speed bowl. The first is a 6 mile winding circuit, roughly divided into thirds. Each successive third is progressively steeper (the final third has a couple of 22% gradients), with hairpins (?switchbacks), blind crests, adverse cambers and so on. The bowl is a 2 mile circumference circular five lane banked track. The banking is set so that at 75 mph in lane 4, and 100 mph in lane 5, a car should track dead straight without hands on the wheel.
So, onto the cars. Cameras weren't allowed, but I managed to get a camera that clipped onto my cell phone in. The resolution isn't great, but all the cars pointing towards me are new A8s
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0015.jpg">
I had seen a new A8 in the flesh before Christmas at a presentation at a dealer. That was indoors, so it is quite hard to get a good idea of what it looks like in "real life". Having now had a chance to look at it properly, I can say with one caveat that it is a great looking car. The front end is unmistakably now part of a clearly themed Audi look. Whereas the present model looks graceful and elegant, the new car looks more muscular and solid. Interestingly, Audi also had a BMW 745 and an S Class Merc present. Of the three, there's no question that the Audi is the best looking car, and that's not just Audi-owner's bias. Next to the Audi, the Merc looks strangely stodgy. It looks like a boulevard cruiser that's been invited to a fight. The Beemer just looks like a joke. Before today I had already formed the view that the front and back looked like they had been designed by committees of people who were given a specific bit to design, but weren't allowed to know the theme of the design, or what anyone else came up with - hence the rather fussy and disjointed look to both ends. Next to the Audi, the BM just looks like someone's been messing around with Photoshop and got bored. BM need to do something with the look of that car, and fast.
The caveat is the back end of the new car. For my money, the back end of the present model is an absolute masterpiece of how to design the back end of a big car. Audi haven't quite pulled off the same trick twice in a row. I think the problem is three fold. First, the rear window is raked a bit too much, so that the boot (trunk) lid is just a bit too short (front to back) that gives the back end an "abrupt" look. Second, there is a big expanse of bodywork below the rear lights (and the fact that the rear lights are set so high on the body doesn't help this) giving the impression of a thick, bulky back end. Finally, there is a very distinct body line along the top edge of the boot, almost as if the boot lid itself is trying to extrude a lip-spoiler. This is a departure from the much smoother and more rounded back end on the present car. That said, I still think the back end is better looking than the BM or the S-class by a fair way.
The interior gratifyingly shares the characteristic I love about the present model's: it feels as if the whole thing has been carved out of a single piece of granite. Interior space is a bit of conundrum though. When I saw the car before Christmas, I thought the cockpit was cramped compared to the present car. When I got in today, I wasn't struck in the same way, and when I got back into my car, I didn't think "wow, this is roomy". However, there is something about the interior of the new car that it took me a while to put my finger on. The transmission tunnel is about 4-5 inches higher, and about 1.5 inches wider than the present car's. Also, whereas the present car has a near horizontal top to the transmission tunnel, meeting a near vertical centre instrument panel, the new car blends the two together more effectively. The impression, though, is that there is less space because what's fresh air in the old car is filled with transmission tunnel in the new car. Conversely, I found I had to stretch to reach a button on the far side of the screen, and I don't have to stretch to reach a similar point on the dash of my car, so maybe the impression is not entirely representative of the ergonomics of the new cabin.
I didn't bother working out the intricacies of the MMI system before setting off, which was a mistake. Bottom line is that it's not so intuitive that you can figure out how everything works while you're driving (believe me, I tried); in fact it wasn't that easy to work out how to adjust the volume of the radio (it's done from the steering wheel, and not as far as I could tell from the MMI interface). You need to sit down and work out you way around it first. From my fiddling around with it after the drive, it makes the present SatNavPlus system look pretty rudimentary; the navigation input is far more sophisticated; you can set car settings (such as which doors/boot you want to open on the central locking); and you can call up the owner's manual as an HTML file. It looks like there is a web browser as well, but that was not functional.
From the MMI you can set the adaptive air suspension. This has four settings: lift, comfort, automatic and dynamic. Lift is not quite Allroad high, but it sure looks funny when an A8 on the move has it. I didn't bother trying it; it's not available in any event at speeds over 50 mph. Nor did I try automatic (it seemed like a waste to do so), and I spent most time in dynamic. This has got to be single biggest advance over the existing car. It's amazing. You get a better ride quality than the current model, but very little body roll. On the alpine circuit the fast corners that there were were an absolute blast - the car felt rock solid and a lot smaller and lighter than it really is (to be fair, I think fast corners are a strong point of the present model too). But in the slower tighter corners, the suspension seems to remove the feeling that you've got a large unwieldy car to control - you come into the corner, point, and go - and handling is fairly neutral. There just isn't the feeling that I sometimes get in the present car at the "point" stage of having a lot of weight somewhere that I don't want it. Of course, it's still possible to out trick the system, but you have to be trying to screw things up to do it. For example, we had a go at a coned slalom course, running into it at around 50-60. The car flies through the cones, but at the end of the course the idea is to brake to a halt in a curve. If you stand on the brakes doing that, you get abs feedback and a slight understeer drift. I didn't run through the cones in the stopping area, and didn't see anyone else do so, but certainly didn't make the turn and stop at the same time either.
In the bowl I set the cruise at 110 mph, and played at switching between comfort and dynamic. The difference was quite surprising. The surface in the bowl is not great - concrete, I think. Dynamic does a good job of filtering out a lot of what would be mild vertical movement of the car, but switch to comfort and it's like you've just driven onto a newly and perfectly tarmaced stretch of road. If automatic gives you dynamic on the twisty bits and comfort on the straights, then it would be just about perfect.
Back to the driving. Transmission has D and S - the latter being a sportier version of D - more downshifts, more holding of revs before upshifts. I also noticed that the box will shift down to stop you labouring the engine (like the present setting on my car) and will change up if you're going to blow the rev needle into the red (unlike the present setting on my car - I think). It also has a slide over tip setting with shifting either using the stick or using the (perfectly weighted) paddles behind the steering wheel: left for down, right for up.
I tended to leave the car in tip and shift on the paddles. The road to the alpine circuit has a couple of roundabouts which are great for second gear blasting. That revealed pretty quickly the agility of the car. You can change direction fairly brutally if you wish, without massively upsetting the balance of the car - again the air suspension working well - and that means that you can blast out of the roundabouts much more effectively than you can in the present car (this is a "real life" comparison, since this is one of my favourite anti-social recreations on the public roads over here). The hairpins on the alpine were not a problem even with the paddle shifting. I found that because of the position of the paddles I tended to drive with hands at quarter to three, but I don't remember having to use much more than half a turn of lock (ie steering wheel upside down) even for the hairpins.
The alpine circuit has, we were told, a 55 speed limit. I took the view that they could chuck me off if they wanted to, so ignored the limit. This meant getting flagged by each of the four marshals on a single lap, but it also meant that I think I got a better idea of what the car could do.
I think on a subjective basis, there is absolutely no doubt that the car dynamically outperforms the present model by some way. In addition to the Quattro drivetrain giving the feel that the car is glued to the road laterally, the suspension in the new car gives the feeling that vertical movement is almost non-existent. It makes for great driving.
Braking is I think more effective than on the present car. Even allowing for the fact that the brakes on the new car were likely to be pretty new, and that mine have about 5000 miles on them, that was the first thing I noticed getting back into my car. The brakes felt effective, but you needed to work harder to get them onside. I tried a couple of emergency stops, and I think if you concentrated you could tell there was some braking assistance, but on the track they just felt firm and responsive.
The bowl has a 100 mph limit in lane 4, which was as high as we were allowed. In the interests of research, I eased it up to 125 mph. I took a quick snap holding the camera by ear - an unsuccessful attempt to emulate the marketing picture that was posted her a couple of days ago.
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0014.jpg">
I'd say it is appreciably quieter than the present car at that sort of speed. The pro driver took me out later, and we were lapping at an indicated 155 mph in lane 5. She had to raise her voice a bit to speak, but I can't say I had to. Very impressive. She also took me out on a different concrete handling track for a couple of laps. Now I've been out with pro drivers on tracks before, so I knew what to expect. However, I was still pretty stunned. I've been taken round Brands Hatch in an Audi TT by a pro, and I can honestly say that this was highly comparable. The car is unbelievably quick, not just because of its grunt, but more because it's just so well-balanced and agile.
Bad points? Not many, that's for sure. There's the back end exterior, which I referred to, and which is largely subjective. Less subjective perhaps is the interior video screen. This pops up on command, which is all very nice to watch. However, it's a bit distracting. More so, I found, than the smaller monitor in my car, which is placed lower down. I think in the end I concluded that it was distracting precisely because once it has popped out, it spoils the line of the interior. I found myself popping it down, then needing to pull it up to fiddle around with the suspension, or the radio, or something else.
Bottom line? Well this is where is gets tricky. I don't drive my car and come away feeling that it's lacking something. In fact, I drive it and come away thinking it's the most complete car I've driven. The new model is certainly a fantastic car, but I found myself asking on the way home "How often would I drive on the road in such a way to exploit the additional abilities of the new car?" This is a concern driven partly by the current push by the UK Government to demonise driving and drivers - if you drive fast in the UK you'll lose your licence fast and be branded a dangerous criminal to boot, but that's not all of it. It is, I reminded myself, the same question I asked when deciding between an S8 and the (cheaper) A8 4.2Qsp.
So whilst I'd have no compunction about putting down my hard earned cash when I come to change my car, I don't think it offers enough of an edge in everyday driving over my present car to cause me to trade up immediately: this says as much, if not more about the present model than it does about the new one.
Oh, but it does have two cupholders in the front, which I don't have at the moment, so you never know...
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/47295/0013.1.jpg">
The car that lives to fight another day.
02-21-2003, 06:39 PM
#7
What a pleasant start of my weekend: reading your write up with a cup of coffee. Thanks Greg66!
I'll probably be reading it a couple of more times. It's great you've tried out and compared the sort of things most of us here on the forum would have, if given the chance.
Trending Topics
02-22-2003, 05:07 AM
#9
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2000
Posts: 951
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: What a pleasant start of my weekend: reading your write up with a cup of coffee. Thanks Greg66!
I was thinking the same thing...I can not wait until the middle of June now. It seems that the A8L will be quite an upgrade from my present 2000 A6 4.3! Thanks again!