Hi all,
Took delivery of my S3 on Monday and about 100km so far. I come from a BMW Z4 E89 2.5 liters inline6 n/a engine 204 HP. First thing I can say is that the S3 make the Z4 technology looks like a 1960 car rather than 2009 one. btw the E89 remains one of the best looking car on the market IMO. But let's do in the right order
1) Just out the dealership I had about 2km of highway to my home. Temptation was too strong and yes, I pushed the damn gas pedal without trashing the engine after 4000 rpm. Whew guys I really have to admit that I bought the S3 without a test drive before and I cannot imagine such a kick in the as*. Cannot wait for the end of burning in
2) Yes, the engine is a bit rougher and lack the same smoothness of the inline6 but it is obvious I think. The noise too is very involving and the parps from the gearbox stamp a smile on my face every time but it lacks that deep, silky and smooth tone from the inline6. Obvious too I suppose
3) Torque is immediately available. No way, it kicks in at every rev.
4) The gearbox is simply amazing. Smooth and very fast. Btw the gears looks a bit short to me. My BMW was a 6 gear torque converter with the opposite flavor: too long gears to deliver a right amount of thrust. But I think it is in the characteristics of a torque converter due to the converter slippage. In "comfort" mode the car always moved from standstill in second gear.
As I told before, aside of the comfort of automatic gearbox for people like me living in a great and ugly south-european city, the parps from the exhaust during upgear fully worth the cost of the automatic gearbox option.
5) Comfort: The car simply looks like tailored around you. Super-sport seats I choose as option are totally comfortable (I am 173 centimeters for 63kg) all the switches and buttons are very cleverly placed and all easily reachable. After 5 minutes I was on the car I felt myself as if I had the car since years.
6) Plastic and all around you is very high quality and with a great feeling to the touch
7) LED headlight are simply amazing. Great light hue and light field and do not forget that you also get the adaptive beam! Worth every euro (or pound...). Still not tested the "bad weather lights" despite actually it is bad weather here...
8) Entertainment: got the B&O sound system. I am a professional classical (organ) and modern (electric bass) musician and audiophile. In my opinion the car is never the right place to listen to music but the B&O sound system does its job and does it very well. There is a strange frequency gap between the subwoofer in the trunk and the woofers in the door to my ear but it is too early to judge: loudspeakers must sound hours and hours before reaching their optimal performances. I listened to x-thousand dollars loudspeakers sounding harsh fresh outta the box. Immediately move the focus of the sound from "center" to "front" from the MMI to enjoy it better. Later I will play with the EQ in order to find a sound better suited to my tastes.
The connectivity package with the phone handsfree is amazing. Also the vocal commands are great and always recognized.
I have SD navigation. It is acceptable to my limited navigation needs but, great God, it is damn slow to load the maps. Every time I press "insert destination" I have to wait minutes before the entry screen appears, sometimes I press the dial twice thinking that the first press was not detected.
I found hilarious, on the instruction manual, the warning that states that: "in case of emergency your voice could be affected by an high degree of emotion and could not be recognized by the system".
I am also still having troubles with the SD media. I ripped a CD with iTunes in "apple loseless format" *m4a and copied to the SD. The MMI does not play this ripped CD. The track names are grey, not white. Maybe some kind of copyright protection crap. (I bought that CD, really!). I copied on the SD some files bought on the iTunes store and they are recognized and played.
Conclusion: before taking delivery of the S3 I was concerned about leaving my Z4. In two days I totally forgot it. A whole new world.
The only thing that makes me a bit upset is that the driver seat, from the first moment I seated on it, has a slight play: when I seat on it the seat move downward of few millimeters with a metallic noise. I suspect it is an anomaly in the mechanism of the height setting. I will come back to the dealer at 700km for a quick check of the car and I will report them of this issue...nothing bothering so far.
Have fun with your S3!!!
Dan
