Sorry for the cross-post, forgot I should put this here...
So my two week write-up...
Well it started well with a lovely sunny day and a decent frist drive, but somewhat dispirited by the dent in my side door within 5 mins of setting off!
After that have put around 600 miles on the clock with a few drives into london, and down to Kent as well as short drives around town.
Initial positives:
- Such a lovely place to spend time. The SS seats are so comfy and I've been playing with the thigh support, lumbar support and so on, to now get a very comfortable seating position.
- The interior is so well set out, and now I'm starting to get used to the MMI and buttons, it's all very intuitive. I'm also impressed with the little things, like the damping on the switch-gear. You forget that you use the indicator stalk all the time, and I love the weighting, noise and damping on things like that, it helps it feel like a quality product.
- The two 'faces' of the car. A lot of the time, you can't use all the power, for example when cruising on a busy motorway or sat in traffic. When thats the case, I can sit in a comfortable car, being soothed by the B&O, with my ACC and s-tronic basically driving itself, and my heated seat relaxing my back, in my comfy SS seats. It's then a lovely exec cruiser. Then I come off the main road, turn music off, stick it in dynamic and give it the beans and it becomes a touring car! Absolutely love that you can have both. Its exactly what I wanted in a car. I do too much driving on congested roads for an out and out sports car during the week (although I am looking at one for the weekend , but thats another story), so the S3 is a perfect fit.
- S-tronic gear box. Not had one in my car before, but its pretty faultless. The combo with ACC is amazing, and I love the ease in which I can switch to manual when I want some fun. It actually has made me a 'better' driver on normal roads, as in D it lets you just cruise along without urging you to floor it all the time and be a tit. S is a different matter of course
- B&O is fantastic, it really brings the music to life, and actually have loved listening to things like talksport and classic FM on it as well as some banging tunes, and helps offset the tyre noise...(more on that later)
- The looks...the Panther Black is lovely and have had non-car people staring at it and asking what is was, so the fact that its different from 'normal' black is visible to those not in the know which is cool. I love the combination of black and chrome, and the fact that it's both subtle, but the car still looks 'special'. Have already had a couple of blokes literally hang out of their punto window in traffic to stare at it!
- The traction, which is phenomenal. I used to hate the scrabbling around in my Scirocco, as well as the traction control kicking in and ruining my fun, so liking the 'grip and go'. Not tried it in the wet yet though.
The not so good...
- Tyre roar is pretty bad, worse than my Scirocco (which was also bad IMO). I presume its partly down to the 19's, but also I suspect the Conti's I have on. Its actually fine on decent tarmac, but as soon as you go on rubbish road its really quite loud and annoying. As I'm on the maintentance pack, I'm stuck with the Conti's too. Its not the end of the world, as I tend to have the B&O on when I'm cruising which easily masks it, and when I'm driving hard the engine and exhaust take over, but its the fly in the refinement ointment I'd say
- My dent, nuff said, although hopefully getting it fixed in two weeks
- The ride has be a bit bad over rubbish ground, and especially any big bumps. I've taken to going over road humps like an old granddad as a result. Its not that the overall ride is bad (actaully its pretty good on normal roads) but potholes and bumps really thump, and because the car is sprung so firmly going over road humps at over 1 mph seems to result in a real bounce! Its not the end of the world, and will probably actually help me out in the long run in terms of looking after my suspension and shocks, but there you go
- and .....not much else
Putting a pretty big grin on my face to far. My wife laughs at me as I'm out every few days cleaning it, especially the quad pipes which I've been looking after with some brasso (the inside ones in particular seem to get black quickly). Took the kids out in it at the weekend too, and it does work well as a family car, boot swallowing our big pushchair and other kiddy stuff no problem, and car seats etc going in fine.
Further updates as I break into the post 1000 mile bedding in period and really start to push it a bit
