Impressions of my new RS4

[mrfish]

Some impressions compared with my TT before the novelty wears off - only had it for a few days, but spent most of yesterday on a day trip from London to Cornwall. Ostensibly for a wedding, but you know the truth.

- Steering - lighter weighting, more feel. Downside is that it follows bumps much more than the TT ever did, meaning the driving instructor was right when he told me to keep both hands on the wheel when accelerating and braking. You didn't need to do that on the TT.

- Ride- RS seems to have a strange mix of being tied down on flat roads, rock solid round corners but quite soft in pitch. I guess this is the effect of having a heavier car with bigger anti roll bars than the TT.

- Toys - I find the Millteks quite boomy - nice for hooligan driving, but not really what you want for a long distance trek in the car. Sat nav does all you need, plus Bose is nice. Also I liked the lumbar support on the seats - on the TT you noticed it after 2 hours in the car. Couldn't get the angle of the seats to feel quite right though - it seems to be canted too far back for me. Is there an adjustment I could make?

- Power- It's very similar to the TT in that it's turbocharged, so drives nice and calmly below 2500rpm. On my first overtake I got a bit of a shock - I put it into 3rd and floored it as you would in a TT. I wasn't expecting the powerboat style raising of the nose, turbine noises, and writhing steering wheel (bumps plus white lines) . Those annoyingly brief 400m sections of uphill dual carriageway also turned into opportunities for overtaking ALL the cars in front, meaning much reduced journey times. With the TT you'd have to build up quite a head of steam before it would overtake anything travellling at 50mph, whereas the RS just blasts past.

- Petrol - Does it always need 97+RON?
On a 400 mile trip my TT would do about 31mpg, fuelled with 95RON at say 95p/litre. With the RS4 I was getting about 26.5mpg and fuelling it with 97RON at 100p, which means it costs almost 25% more to fuel. With 95RON, difference would almost halve.

Looks - Pretty subtle really, but with its lights on from the front at night, it's definitely mean looking. Non petrolheads think it's a nice looking estate, and begin my remarking "Oooh nice - leather seats". I'm looking forward to giving them unannounced full boost

- Overall - highly recommended.

[Nige_RS4]

Some comments from another RS4 owner.

Steering - mine did this until I had an alignment done or it could also be worn tyres, Pirellis especially seem prone to this.

Ride - shouldn't be any serious fr/rr pitching going on - what's the mileage?

Petrol - the engines almost 50% larger + at least 50% more powerful and the car's 20% heavier - what did you expect? And yes, if you want optimum power, 97+RON is what she needs.

Enjoy your RS4

[mrfish]

It has Bridgestones on, which according to some earlier posts do contribute to following bumps as the sidewalls are much stiffer than other makes. Only does this occasionally though.

The pitching isn't that severe, it just seemed odd that the car would go over speedbumps reasonably smoothly, but round corners without roll - in comparison the TT rolled more but was harder over the bumps and didn't pitch-up as it had no power in comparison.

Miles: Just coming up to 39k - belts service included by the dealer.

[tombs]

Mmm, nice comparrison, yes the TT is a different animal. Get her remapped..just a stage one and you'll really find out what she is all about.

[kcsun]

It has Bridgestones on

I used to run Bridgestones with the knowledge that they are NOT designed for RS4's with only a 91 sidewall rating not 94, I always thought they were a better tyre BUT BEWARE, take the tyres off and check the inside's, the inner sidewalls bubble with hard driving and then are prone to blow out. I now run the new Toyo's which are excellent. If you bought the car from a dealer get it back and the tyres changed under warranty.
kc

[LSWP]

Could the pitching up be due to the single action dampers Audi seems to put on their cars?

[Golich]

26mpg in an RS4 is good canny long distance driving - normal for me and I'd say quite canny is 21-22mpg but short 7-8mile journeys.

Part worn or soft tyres (check pressure) of this width will tramline on the white lines etc. The Goodyear F1's have been the better of the three I've tried so far - Toyos and Pirellis. Great value for money and I can't tell the difference in grip, wear etc from the other two.