Originally Posted by RFS

Audi says they have 4 speakers in the headliner to keep the downshifting "clunks" from sounding in the cabin. Were those speakers turned on during your test drive?

Originally Posted by feralc

Couple of questions, my car is right now at the dealer and I told them about this "lurch" shifting at 10-15 mph I have felt while accelerating as well, so your q7 got fixed after the flash but your A7 still does it? And second question, how did you feel the S8 with the real horsepower the 4.0T engine can make?

Originally Posted by tridentnyc

Those speakers/system is always on as part of the overall noise cancellation in the cabin. It's not the noise of the clunkiness that's the issue, it's the lurching of the car and the unrefined nature of slow deceleration around 10-15 mph.

Originally Posted by tridentnyc

Hey all,

So today I attended the Audi Driving Experience in Monticello, NY. Great day at the track where I was able to drive an S4, S5, TTS, TTRS, RS5, S8 and yes, the S7 of course! A great day at a great event! My only complaint was the instructors were WAY too tame in terms of speed on the track, hard to get a sense of what the vehicles could do fully. The Porsche event I did at the same location about six weeks ago was much less restrained.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the S7 as compared to the A7. We were able to do both street runs and track runs with the S7 so my following comments refer to both driving scenarios. The S7 was always set to Sport and full Dynamic mode on all runs.

As soon as I got in the S7 I immediately liked the sport seats...way more comfortable than the A7 seats. The S7 seats have better thigh support and side support. I felt very secure in the seats and they felt slightly "cushier" believe it or not. Overall a much more comfortable and performing seat than the A7 without a doubt.

I was expecting the S7's ride to be much harsher than the A7's due to the performance oriented suspension. I was really tuned in to whether the ride would feel stiff and whether road imperfections would make it's way into the cabin. I was very pleasantly surprised that the ride was very sporty while still retaining a nice comfortable feel overall. The cabin remained quiet except under hard acceleration, where the S7's great exhaust note made just enough "noise" in the cabin. One thing I did notice about the suspension was the S7 felt like it still had about the same body roll as the A7. Now I was definitely driving the S7 more aggressively than my A7 but I still felt it had more body roll than I thought it would, not a lot of body roll but again about the same as the A7 surprisingly.

One aspect of the S7 that was a BIG surprise to me was it's off the line performance...it felt no better than the A7 to me. I know on paper the S7 is quicker 0-60 mph than the A7 but it just didn't feel that way to me. "Seat of the pants" feel is what matters to me, what puts a smile on my face etc. Now don't get me wrong, the S7 definitely puts a smile on my mug, it just didn't put a bigger one on me today and that surprised me.

One other thing I noticed was the seven speed dual clutch tranny felt much clunkier on deceleration than the eight speed on my A7. Now to be fair, from time to time I still get a slight "lurch" at about 10 or 15 mph with my A7 but it was much more pronounced with the S7. I drove two different S7's today and both exhibited the same downshift clunkiness. Maybe something Audi will have worked out in the near future.

I've read just about every article published on the S7 so far and was extremely close to ordering one and trading in my A7...not anymore. While the S7 is an extremely good vehicle, I just can't justify the premium over the A7 for the perceived performance gains.

Now that I've had a chance to thoroughly test drive the S7 I'm going to do the H&R springs on my A7 and do the engine software tune if and when that ever becomes available. With just those two mods I really feel that my A7 will get damn close to the S7 both in terms of performance on paper and the all important seat of the pants/**** eating grin "spec". Then all I need to do is figure out how to get either the S7 sport seats or the A8 comfort seats and I'll be set.

I've posted a tiny excerpt so you guys can hear the exhaust note in the cabin. There are just two small blips of the throttle due to the overly cautious track instructor. Sucks but check it out. One might ask how I got a good feel for the S7 if the track runs were so slow? The answer to that is we actually went faster and more aggressively on the street runs than the track with the S7 and the runs were much longer.

It could be argued that the extra hp, better seats and torque vectoring differential are worth the extra bucks and I think it's definitely a valid argument for sure...worth thinking about for someone who is considering either the A7 or S7. Just not worth the hit on a trade or sale and the price premium of the S7 for someone like me who already owns an A7.

Anyway, hope this adds to the conversation just a bit.

http://youtu.be/GLxbgVwHMKs

Originally Posted by DinB

How did it compare to the RS5? A lot of people are bashing us RS5 owners sayins that the S7 will be a superior sports car.

Originally Posted by clintb

OP didn't get to take the RS5 on the street: stated earlier in thread

Track driving was lame and slow

Originally Posted by clintb

OP didn't get to take the RS5 on the street: stated earlier in thread

Track driving was lame and slow