Well, three months has almost gone by since I collected the ED25 and it’s on about 2000 miles now so one can say it’s definitely run in. I’ve tried the RS mode a couple of times and it’s insane, it’s really fast, with snappy gear changes and the exhaust sounds great. I really do like this car! The fuel tank could do with being a bit bigger though!
I do get quite a fair bit of attention on the road in the car, not so much hooligans from the traffic lights but on the motorway I get friendly toots with thumbs up etc. It’s great! Really makes me smile.
Since the car arrived, I’ve been in discussion with Audi UK to arrange for the matching watch. Originally it wasn’t going to be made available to the UK market, but after complaining they have since agreed to release it over here. The product has had to go through some internal processes where it gets allocated a part number and then it needs to be made “order-able” from the dealerships through the parts network. I’ve been kept fully up to date and the watch is now orderable. The watch will have the matching car number engraved onto the rear casing. I can’t wait for it to arrive.
I’m still waiting for the spare set of black wheels (with the Pirelli Trofeo RS tyres), and whilst I was told they would arrive in Winter, they haven’t yet arrived. I’m in no rush, but I have got a set of Audi tyre bags already so that when they do arrive, I can keep them safe and dry until I try a track day.
As winter was fast approaching I tried to order a second set of the yellow customised RS4 floor mats that the car came with. My local dealer said that the mats were produced exclusively by Audi Sport and whilst they were orderable, there was no time estimate for delivery and full payment would be needed up front. I nearly fell off my chair when they said the cost for a new set was £900! In order to preserve the lovely yellow embroidered mats, I purchased a set of genuine A4 rubber floor mats for the winter. They don’t look anywhere near as good, but I’m happy knowing that my other mats will only be used in dry conditions.
In the meantime, the car has behaved impeccably but I was eager to get the car PPF’d as soon as possible due to the thin paint. I picked up one stone chip on the bumper, but I touched it up with some Imola Yellow paint and you’ll be hard pressed to spot it. The car had PPF installed by a lovely chap called Justin who runs a company called Exclusive Car Care in Trowbridge. He’s a one man band, and the attention to detail and service I received was second to none. The car had the bonnet, the front bumper, the front wings, and the headlights protected with X-PEL Ultimate Plus PPF and was then ceramic coated with G-techniq.
During the order process for the vehicle, there was no brochure, just the Audi UK press release, and the international Audi GmbH version. When I enquired about what sort of options the cars were having in the UK nobody could really answer me. Nobody seemed to know anything. Basically in a nutshell, Audi UK bought 50 of these cars from Audi Germany and pre-specced them so no further optioning was possible by the customer. The same sort of thing happened the year before with the RS4 Competition. Anyway, it turns out that within Audi UK, there was a 19 page presentation about the ED25 car which I was able to print/staple so it forms a real brochure - why everything needs to be digital these days is beyond me.
I then got a bit obsessed with the UK spec of the vehicle and was comparing it to the Euro models and was surprised to find a few differences. The major disappointment was that UK cars didn’t get the carbon fibre engine cover. When you consider the rest of the vehicle has carbon fibre everywhere, the engine cover wasn’t changed. I can only assume this is down to cost cutting and Audi UK typically want to pocket more profit. I managed to source a new carbon fibre part from a parts specialist in Hungary for exactly half the cost that my local Audi dealership wanted. The carbon fibre part number is: 06M103925AB for those interested. I’ve still kept the original engine cover. Any changes made to this car by the way will be fully reversible, no holes will ever be drilled and no wires cut or spliced into. That’s just me and that’s how I roll.
Here is the original Audi UK engine cover on the left versus the Euro spec carbon fibre version:
Looking a million times better!
The other cost cutting I had noticed when compared to my facelift 8V S3 was that the red door warning lights didn’t illuminate - they were just reflectors. Many thanks here go to
@alps26 who kindly advised me of an upgrade kit that piggy backs off the puddle light wiring loom. I removed the door cards because it’s easy enough to do (just three screws), and I was able to neatly route the new wiring to the red warning light along the existing loom to ensure it looks completely original.
Much better!
That’s about it for now. I’m half tempted to retro-fit the lockable glovebox handle (which was removed for the UK spec cars, and also the lower driver dashboard storage compartment). But maybe that’s a story for another day…