Jaipur4

OK, so here are my thoughts about the new ride after 1500 miles or so.

Spec is TDi 170 Sport 3 door S-Tronic in Brilliant Red with black cloth trim.

First impressions are good, the trim combination looks great and everything seems to be well put together (as you would expect). The new style concert radio/CD looks better than the old style IMO. And as for the outside - well its very red, just what I wanted.

Performance wise it really gets on with the job, loads of torque and power - obviously I haven't been reving to the red line yet but not too far off. Diesel performance is soo different to gas, its really lazy and because the engine is turning slowly and the car is quiet its very easy to arrive at corners travelling much faster than you think or intended.
On the subject of which the steering is a bit light and could do with more feel, not helped by the extra weight of the diesel motor, which all means that turn in is not a precise as I would really like. That said I know from experience that its just a question of tuning in to this particular cars feel and overall it handles fine. Overtaking is easy & after the last few months driving a super slow gas version of the A3 I'm having to readjust to the pace of the TDi with the added bonus of 30bhp more than the TDi I had before.

The S-Tronic seems well suited to the motor and makes city driving a breeze, one reason being that first gear is very short and in a MT car you are changing up almost as soon as you have moved off from standstill, obviously not a problem with S-Tronic. Out of the city though and its clear that you need to learn how to drive the flappy paddle shift, its not as intuitive as a stick and is not as tactile as each change feels exactly the same, without the back/fore & across the gate motion of the stick you somehow don't just "know" which gear you are in. Leave it in D and as long as you don't want to drive too fast its fine, if however the road is super twisty (like many here are) then much better progress can be made by slotting across to the manual mode and you can avoid the gear changes mid corner and be in the right gear for what you want to do. It may be a clever gearbox but it can't see the road ahead!!!

Ride comfort is fine IMO and the sports seats are a better option than what I've had before, more comfortable (not that the others were uncomfortable) and more support.

Economy is at the lower end of what I'd expect at around 45mpg imperial (about 38 US) but I anticipate that to improve as it loosens up, my previous TDi was 3mpg better after 36k miles.

April

Wonderful! Nice that you can contrast between your previous car.

Jaipur4

I was a bit worried that the sport would be a bit stiff but its fine.
Should get the chance to give it a clean & take a few pics this weekend.

April

You've driven in the US, right? How do the road surfaces compare?

Jaipur4

with bad joints, especially in cities, which we don't get so much here as its mostly ashphalt or macadam - but a lot of our roads are quite poor as they have been dug up by utility companies and suffered a general lack of repair work.
Away from the cities in the US I'd say the road surface was generally better than here, but not a huge difference really.

April

much worse than western Europe, and so they often gripe about the suspension of cars they are testing that have been developed there.

Bezor

You paragragh addressing the S-Tronic is exactly how I feel

Jaipur4

our roads are not that good.
Apparently Audi have tweaked the suspension on the A4 for this country after testing & critisism (sp?), I would have thought that they would carry that through to the rest of the range too.
The ride in the new car is probably better than the old one even in sport trim, so I guess its a constant development thing.

Jaipur4

of city driving, otherwise I'm not sure what I'd have gone for - Quattro would have been tempting ;-)