Thought it would be worth posting up my opinions of the S3 having owed it for just over 6 months now.
It is a 2007 model, bought with 28k on the clock from an Audi Dealership with warranty and 2 years free servicing.
Previous car was a Merc CLK500
First impressions:
1. Very light steering but OK at speed.
2. Poor front end grip due to crappy tyres, swiftly replaced with uniroyal rainsports all round.
3. Interior fit and finish all very nice, but of a squeak where passenger door card rubs against dash, sorted with silicone based cleaner.
4. Much noisier than the merc (to be expected to be honest) but I am always hearing things moving around in the boot needs to be sorted with a net or something
5. I missed the auto lights and wipers (big deal, got over it after a few days)
6. Not as much fun (or dangerous) to drive than my MR2 Turbo
7. Merc did between 8mpg and 27mpg. Audi does between 23mpg and 35 mpg depending on driving of course.
Given that I need an understated, practical motorway cruiser with the ability to lug the odd load but also become a B road terrorist on demand, I think it pretty will fulfils my criteria quite nicely.
Now on to it's performance and the remap story:
When I bought it the performance was OK compared to the CLK (also bear in mind I have had faster performance cars in the past). For example a 1300kg impreza with circa 300bhp. I think the CLK is 1900kg with 302bhp and 235 lb/ft of torques.
When I purchased the car from the Audi dealer they did mention they could remap it and retain the warranty.
So after a couple of months of not really being happy with the performance (not being able to make a mark on lesser performance cars acceleration wise etc) I booked it in with the dealership to get it mapped. They charge around a £100 more than a "typical" mapper but I thought it was well worth it to retain the warranty.
15 mins in the Audi dealership, chap comes back out and says "it's already been mapped but I have tweaked it to give about another 10 bhp". Great I though, firstly the dealer sold me a mapped car (fair play they probably had not been aware), and also this so called Performance audi as been already been remapped and is still pants :Flush:
About a month later I did a rolling road session to see how much power and torque it had and sure enough it had just a tad under 290BHP
So was it me just being used to the performance, was the handbrake binding ? Nope, was not convinced and I felt the performance was just not there.
Not knowing who put the map on in the first place, but knowing it was a Revo map I decided to bypass all the tuners and book it into Revo HQ for them to take a look.
So I pitched up at Revo this morning, told them the story, first thing they said they would check is if it really did have a revo map on it and take it from there.
Literally 10 mins later the response was "yep got a revo map, unfortunately it is not enabled and the standard map is running". They then enabled the revo map and they took it out for a test drive. All sorted they said. It will be a different animal now.
So bearing in mind it was wet, windy, greasy roads I did a bit of testing on the way back home.
Cor-blimey what a difference !!
ESP was blinking much more often
As well as a much more significant push in the back and made the car "feel lighter" which is strange.
4th gear is a revelation.
I actually came to a roundabout carrying much more speed due to the lack of effort in getting there! ABS had a tickle at that one.
So a bug thumbs up to the chaps at Revo for sorting it. They seem very down to earth, friendly and what's more didn't charge me a bean which is great considering it was not a fault with their map just human error or some such on the part of the person who did the mapping.
It does leave on outstanding question.. Why was the rolling road showing 290bhp ???
My only guess was that it is over-reading like an OCD Sci-Fi fan with a Kindle and unlimited access to content !!
Next step is 360 to 380 BHP and the Revo chaps will get my money when I am ready to do the conversion.
Sorry for the long winded post but hey ho
It is a 2007 model, bought with 28k on the clock from an Audi Dealership with warranty and 2 years free servicing.
Previous car was a Merc CLK500
First impressions:
1. Very light steering but OK at speed.
2. Poor front end grip due to crappy tyres, swiftly replaced with uniroyal rainsports all round.
3. Interior fit and finish all very nice, but of a squeak where passenger door card rubs against dash, sorted with silicone based cleaner.
4. Much noisier than the merc (to be expected to be honest) but I am always hearing things moving around in the boot needs to be sorted with a net or something
5. I missed the auto lights and wipers (big deal, got over it after a few days)
6. Not as much fun (or dangerous) to drive than my MR2 Turbo
7. Merc did between 8mpg and 27mpg. Audi does between 23mpg and 35 mpg depending on driving of course.
Given that I need an understated, practical motorway cruiser with the ability to lug the odd load but also become a B road terrorist on demand, I think it pretty will fulfils my criteria quite nicely.
Now on to it's performance and the remap story:
When I bought it the performance was OK compared to the CLK (also bear in mind I have had faster performance cars in the past). For example a 1300kg impreza with circa 300bhp. I think the CLK is 1900kg with 302bhp and 235 lb/ft of torques.
When I purchased the car from the Audi dealer they did mention they could remap it and retain the warranty.
So after a couple of months of not really being happy with the performance (not being able to make a mark on lesser performance cars acceleration wise etc) I booked it in with the dealership to get it mapped. They charge around a £100 more than a "typical" mapper but I thought it was well worth it to retain the warranty.
15 mins in the Audi dealership, chap comes back out and says "it's already been mapped but I have tweaked it to give about another 10 bhp". Great I though, firstly the dealer sold me a mapped car (fair play they probably had not been aware), and also this so called Performance audi as been already been remapped and is still pants :Flush:
About a month later I did a rolling road session to see how much power and torque it had and sure enough it had just a tad under 290BHP
So was it me just being used to the performance, was the handbrake binding ? Nope, was not convinced and I felt the performance was just not there.
Not knowing who put the map on in the first place, but knowing it was a Revo map I decided to bypass all the tuners and book it into Revo HQ for them to take a look.
So I pitched up at Revo this morning, told them the story, first thing they said they would check is if it really did have a revo map on it and take it from there.
Literally 10 mins later the response was "yep got a revo map, unfortunately it is not enabled and the standard map is running". They then enabled the revo map and they took it out for a test drive. All sorted they said. It will be a different animal now.
So bearing in mind it was wet, windy, greasy roads I did a bit of testing on the way back home.
Cor-blimey what a difference !!
ESP was blinking much more often
As well as a much more significant push in the back and made the car "feel lighter" which is strange.
4th gear is a revelation.
I actually came to a roundabout carrying much more speed due to the lack of effort in getting there! ABS had a tickle at that one.
So a bug thumbs up to the chaps at Revo for sorting it. They seem very down to earth, friendly and what's more didn't charge me a bean which is great considering it was not a fault with their map just human error or some such on the part of the person who did the mapping.
It does leave on outstanding question.. Why was the rolling road showing 290bhp ???
My only guess was that it is over-reading like an OCD Sci-Fi fan with a Kindle and unlimited access to content !!
Next step is 360 to 380 BHP and the Revo chaps will get my money when I am ready to do the conversion.
Sorry for the long winded post but hey ho
