Okay so I know there are a lot of people out there like me who want to read as many reviews and hands on experiences with the car before they put their money down, so figured I owe it back having got my car now. I'll try to stick to bullet points to make it a bit more digestible. So having had the car for 3 days and done 150 miles, here are some quick thoughts. For clarity, my car spec is in the signature.
Some minor negative points:
Overall then a really great car with just some really minor nitpicky points. And to be honest, this is not exactly Audi's top end car. They have to cut costs somewhere I guess, which is why the A6, A7 and A8 exist.
- First of all, and most importantly, overall I think it is a great car and i'm very happy with it!
- "lag delay hesitation". It is there, but it's not so bad I find it dangerous or off putting. In my opinion if you are finding the 1 second of delay dangerous, then you should not be pulling out anyway as clearly the gap is pretty small. I find it much less of a problem if you manually take off the electronic park, and have disabled stop start. I've not had a situation yet where it's gave me an actual issue. Just plan accordingly, take off the electronic brake before hand, and it's fine. In my opinion anyway.
- Slightly separate to the above issue, I am finding it takes a bit of practice to pull away smoothly. For some reason the car seems to go from 0 > 5mph very suddenly, almost a bit of a lurch. My old car did not do this, despite being more powerful. But i've found I can stop it doing it if I am extra smooth with the accelerator pedal, so it is just something to get used to. I pretty consistently avoid doing this now after just 150 miles, so no biggie.
- The 1.4 engine is great for normal driving, what a pleasant surprise. No it does not give you much acceleration past 50mph or so, but it will still get up to 70mph at a steady and adequate pace. At and around town speeds, it feels nice and nippy.
- It's so quiet ! this has to be one of my favourite things about the car. I've never had any kind of luxury saloon/sedan car before, and came from a 64 plate SEAT Leon Cupra. This car is whisper quiet in comparison. I almost feel like I could fall asleep, which is a tad worrying!...
- The 7 speed S Tronic gear box once on the move is a real joy. Very very smooth, much more so than the 6 speed wet dual clutch in my Leon.
- The handling is perfectly fine. It stays nice and flat, well composed, very stable. It's not as sharp and fun as my prior hot hatch, but then it's not supposed to be. I am sure the S4 is better in this regard.
- The brakes seem good. I am used to more initial bite and I think I would prefer it if that were the case, but I have no doubt they would stop me quickly if I really lent on them (have yet to try yet).
- For me, the digital dash and 8.3" screens are a must have. I think they are absolutely excellent. As is Apple CarPlay. Just being able to use Siri voice control to select what music I want is such great ease of use I don't think I could ever buy a car again without it. Having the sat nav on your dash right in front of your eyes is great. The screens are sharp, colourful and bright. They are not as amazing as the latest OLED smartphones, but they are still very good and amongst the best I have personally seen in a car (though I should stress I have never sat in a new S Class or anything of that ilk).
- The B&O Sound System. I think it is great overall. For £750, it's about as good as I would expect. For reference, I own a more expensive Hi-Fi unit at home, have owned multiple powered studio monitors (what they use in music recording studios), have had about 10 pairs of expensive headphones. So I am used to good sound and can appreciate it. I think the B&O unit has a good, pleasing sound. I have heard some people say it's no better than the 10 speaker audi sound system, but I would strongly disagree with this. I have used that system for years, and the B&O is better in every way, and significantly so. It goes loud, it does not distort until relatively high SPL's, it has quite good detail and the bass is well controlled. What I will say is that badly recorded music does indeed sound bad, these are not forgiving speakers. Some speakers let you play 128Kbps MP3s and they sound okay. These are not like that, if you feed them trash they will let you know. They want well recorded, high quality rips of your music. Do so and you will be rewarded ! Don't use Bluetooth, use your phone through USB or use an SD Card. Listen to some Eric Clapton or Steely Dan and you should be impressed.
- I've not done a commute to work yet through town traffic, but on the journeys i've done so far (mainly back roads, small towns and villages - no motorway or city stuff), i've got from 31mpg on one journey to 42mpg on another, and everything in between. Seems okay. Lets see what happens when I do a rush hour commute..
Some minor negative points:
- I don't think the steering wheel controls feel as high quality as the rest of car they feel a bit overly loud and clicky, plasticy.
- There is not as much room for my size 11 left foot in the foot well as I am used to on my old car. The foot rest is also at an angle. It's fine, but I would prefer more.
- Also I would have liked some soft padding to rest my knee against.
- The reversing camera while useful is pretty low definition. Functional, but far from HD.
- The B&O while great is giving me a very slight rattle on the center speaker. You can only hear it (and quietly) on certain songs, mainly strong female vocals. But it's definitely there.
- No footwell lamps
- Super mega nitpicky point: The LED reading lights have a green cast in the centre of their beam, and I seriously spent 2 minutes last evening panicking that my trousers had somehow stained the Alcantara green as I got out of the car and the lights came on!
- Limited storage if you don't opt for the storage pack. Not even a compartment behind the front seats!
Overall then a really great car with just some really minor nitpicky points. And to be honest, this is not exactly Audi's top end car. They have to cut costs somewhere I guess, which is why the A6, A7 and A8 exist.
