Well actually 1100 miles in just two weeks.
Some more thoughts:
After the 1st worrying week of rock hard suspension - and thoughts of "crikey, 3 years and 95,000 miles in this is going to drive me mad" the Sportback has settled down into a pretty fine car.
Back to the suspension thought - yes at the beginning it was dreadfully hard (painfully so), as 500 miles came up it mellowed a little and now with 1000 miles plus gone it has mellowed still further, it is now just 'firm'. The worst piece of road for unsettling the suspension I have come across is actually the northbound stretch of the M40 between junctions 8 and 9 - it is just awful.
Aside from this evil bit of motorway the suspension makes the car terrific fun to drive - even though I have had some especially nice cars in recent years the S-Line is actually pretty special.
After a late ferry crossing arrival into Southampton last night and 126 miles to home in the damp darkness I steamed up the M3, A34. The 2.0 TDi DSG is such a hoot to drive - so the last 50 miles were all on the A roads up through Woodstock, Shipston 0n Stour and into Warwickshire.
Slicing through the country side, Xenons doing the business and sticking to the speed limits all the way was just so much fun - fun I haven't had in any car for some years. The ride is firm and very well controlled, no wallow and no bounce with tons of grip and that lovely squirty TDi/DSG punch out of the corners - and all the while the DIS reporting 45mpg +! Could this be 21st century motoring heaven in the real world? I knew last night that I had indeed bought the right car.
One element of the ride/drive that continues to surprise me is how direct the steering is - loads of feed back and instantaneous response - this is clear evidence that Audi's engineers have heeded the complaints of numerous testers that the steering feel was 'wooden'. OK the steering isn't Lotus Elise territory but it is close, really close,
Fuel economy is interesting (I almost feel hypocritical writing this as it is so much fun to drive), in the 1st few hundred miles 45.7 was the average consumption on the mtorway @ 75-80, it is now returning a pretty consistent 52.4. I reckon this car will halve my monthly fuel bill - so far this week I have covered 325miles and still have just under half a take of the smelly stuff left. Outrageous. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif.
The DSG is 'just' an exceptionally good automatic tansmission, I have had a couple of plays with the paddles in manual mode and it really isn't anything special - stick the shifter into S mode (should stand for 'Scamper' rather than Sport) and you can have a whole lot more fun. The 'box is very quick and responsive and seamlessly rips up and down the 6 ratios - aside from the rev counter see-sawing back and forth you have no sensation of the thing shifting at all - that digital gear indicator just says what is going on.
I'd guess that a manual transmission with the 2.0TDi would be tedious - permanently changing gear?
A3, 3.2 owners take note here - you could still have almost all the fun without the pain of fuel cost!
Mmmm and I have a visit to AMD scheduled for December too.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/groovy.gif
Some more thoughts:
After the 1st worrying week of rock hard suspension - and thoughts of "crikey, 3 years and 95,000 miles in this is going to drive me mad" the Sportback has settled down into a pretty fine car.
Back to the suspension thought - yes at the beginning it was dreadfully hard (painfully so), as 500 miles came up it mellowed a little and now with 1000 miles plus gone it has mellowed still further, it is now just 'firm'. The worst piece of road for unsettling the suspension I have come across is actually the northbound stretch of the M40 between junctions 8 and 9 - it is just awful.
Aside from this evil bit of motorway the suspension makes the car terrific fun to drive - even though I have had some especially nice cars in recent years the S-Line is actually pretty special.
After a late ferry crossing arrival into Southampton last night and 126 miles to home in the damp darkness I steamed up the M3, A34. The 2.0 TDi DSG is such a hoot to drive - so the last 50 miles were all on the A roads up through Woodstock, Shipston 0n Stour and into Warwickshire.
Slicing through the country side, Xenons doing the business and sticking to the speed limits all the way was just so much fun - fun I haven't had in any car for some years. The ride is firm and very well controlled, no wallow and no bounce with tons of grip and that lovely squirty TDi/DSG punch out of the corners - and all the while the DIS reporting 45mpg +! Could this be 21st century motoring heaven in the real world? I knew last night that I had indeed bought the right car.
One element of the ride/drive that continues to surprise me is how direct the steering is - loads of feed back and instantaneous response - this is clear evidence that Audi's engineers have heeded the complaints of numerous testers that the steering feel was 'wooden'. OK the steering isn't Lotus Elise territory but it is close, really close,
Fuel economy is interesting (I almost feel hypocritical writing this as it is so much fun to drive), in the 1st few hundred miles 45.7 was the average consumption on the mtorway @ 75-80, it is now returning a pretty consistent 52.4. I reckon this car will halve my monthly fuel bill - so far this week I have covered 325miles and still have just under half a take of the smelly stuff left. Outrageous. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif.
The DSG is 'just' an exceptionally good automatic tansmission, I have had a couple of plays with the paddles in manual mode and it really isn't anything special - stick the shifter into S mode (should stand for 'Scamper' rather than Sport) and you can have a whole lot more fun. The 'box is very quick and responsive and seamlessly rips up and down the 6 ratios - aside from the rev counter see-sawing back and forth you have no sensation of the thing shifting at all - that digital gear indicator just says what is going on.
I'd guess that a manual transmission with the 2.0TDi would be tedious - permanently changing gear?
A3, 3.2 owners take note here - you could still have almost all the fun without the pain of fuel cost!
Mmmm and I have a visit to AMD scheduled for December too.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/groovy.gif
