Well, I picked my 2007 RS4 Avant up from Audi on Thursday so i thought I'd share my first impressions on the car on here.
This was the Audi photo of the car, and the only change I asked for was to paint the mirrors silver, reset the bumper and change the tyres before I picked it up.
The car came from Harrogate Audi, but as I'm in Swindon it was going to be a long ol' trek back up there to pick it up, so the dealer we kind enough to meet me halfway at the Sytner HQ in Leicester where they collected my PX car and I completed the Audi paperwork, paid them the difference and took the car home. The guy from the dealer was incredibly helpful and didn't mind me calling him about 5 times a day with various questions about Clutchs, discs and DRC / coil replacement history. I would certainly recommend them.
To say I was like an excited school kid on the way up would be understatement. Now I've had a few fast cars before and this RS4 wouldn't be my fastest ever car, but there's been something special about the B7 Avants ever since I first saw the Show car in 2005.
The car was exactly as I expected and I was certainly not disappointed with the way it performed once I'd got a bit more used to it over a couple of hundred miles.
I have a TVR which is a Summer weekend toy, but the delivery of the power from the Two V8 engines couldn't be any more different.
The Audi needs revving, but when you do that last little kick up towards the rev limited is fantastic, whereas in the TVR you almost feel sorry for the engine revving it as you get a huge dollop of torque very low down. It makes for a much more rewarding experience in the Audi and the Nascar sound is a real treat from the drivers seat. In fact, I spent a lot of the journey with the window down listening to various rev ranges and loads.
I was very pleasantly surprised at how good a motorway cruiser it is. Sure the 6th gear is fairly low and could do with a few hundred RPM/10MPH ratio in it, but the sound isn't intrusive when you're cruising along between 75-90ish and my kids and mrs seem to like it for getting around in.
When I first found this car, as I mentioned earlier, the only thing I really wanted changing was the black mirrors to Sliver, and despite only getting a couple of days to do it the dealer made a great job of removing and painting them. The other slight concern I had with the spec was that it had a multi Function wheel rather than the Flat bottomed wheel. I've actually taken quite a liking to the MFSW, so at least there's no need to try and find around £600 for the FBSW. The telephone and voice activation function is very god and once I fathomed out all the voice activation key words, it's as good a system as I've had in previous cars, if not better.
There's a couple of minor frustrations, firstly my car has the Sat Nav system which is great and quite easy use (even in comparison to the touch screen one I had in a recent car), but not the CD multichanger, so I can't listen to a CD and use the Sat nav at the same time which is a pain.
I does however have a Ipod doc in the glove box, but I don't want to have my iphone in the glove box as I like to be able to see who's texted me etc on the move (not of course to read them whilst driving) The phone is linked into the Handsfree kit with bluetooth, so I can't imagine it's rocket science to have it connect into the music system to play songs through the same route or at least have the Ipod doc in the armrest where the big bulky phone prep unit it (what phone's that for anyway, as I've not seen a phone that size since they were part of a briefcase
)The dealer did say they could wire it into the arm rest, but it's a specific Audi kit and it's not cheap, so I've opted to get an auto electrician friend of mine to run an apple extension lead (male to female - 2m @ £8.99 from ebay) from the inside of the glovebox, into the transimission center console and up into the back of the centre armrest where my phone will sit and charge yet still play music.
In the meantime I've just put all my music on an SD card, so all sorted there.
Generally, I'm very impressed with the car. The kids like it, I've had nothing but positive comments on it in petrol stations and outside shops and I like the fact that those not in the know just think it's a black Audi estate, whereas those that do know, know it's a very capable car.
If anyone's interested, then when Audi took the car in as a PX the previous owner had just had it fitted with a new set of Vredestein Wintrak Extreme 255/35/19 Winter / Snow tyres ;
http://www.camskill.co.uk/m98b423s2804p ... 35_35_R_19
I opted to fit PZero corsa's on it as I've had them in the past, so know they're decent rubber.
The winter tyres had been only used for approx 200miles, so are virtually wear free and are now in a stack wrapped up in my garage, so if anyone wants to offer me a few quid for them, then a set of virtually new winter tyres can be theirs for not much outlay ?
Funnily enough, I'm starting to think my TVR's maybe not going to get the use this summer that it's enjoyed previously as the Audi seems to have stolen all my attention. But we'll wait and see. Maybe I need to trade the TVR in for an Atom which is a scratch I'll certainly need to itch one day.
Anyway, so far is certainly so good with the RS4 and as I'm planning on keeping it a while, I'll keep this updated with progress..
Graeme - a happy RS4 owner
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