100,0000!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kante3]

........Kilometers that is!

Nearly three years into ownership and my RS is still going strong, in fact over the last 10-20,000 kilometers the (untuned) engine has been feeling stronger than ever and the fuel economy has certainly improved. Now maybe that due to the fact that I’m (mainly) using Shell optimax or maybe its because the engine is just beginning to loosen up – but whatever I’m certainly not complaining. Fuel consumption has fallen from an average 13,5 litres per 100 km to around 13,3 over the last few months

What hasn’t improved and IMHO has been poor since day one is the handling especially on skinnier (225) winter tyres. A lot of my mileage is fast autobahn keeping the speed up around 200 kmh, at these speeds when entering the corner the car makes a brief hard stopping lurch before settling on line. Once on line there plenty of grip but I always have the feeling that Audi is relying on 4wd rather than exceptional chassis balance to achieve that grip.

My other major gripe is the brakes. Generally fine in the dry but a nightmare in the wet with high speed braking requiring a firm grip on the wheel to keep everything on the straight and narrow.

Despite the hammering up and down motorways and the fact that my car lives a somewhat unloved life out on the street, remarkably little has gone wrong and the car is still mostly rattle free. So far the list of faults has been limited to:

1. Three bent wheels (of course!).
2. A broken washer pump.
3. CD player that occasionally jams.
4. An armrest that occasionally doesn’t!

Other than that it’s been nothing more than regular servicing. I’m on my second set of both summer and winter tyres, which for such a high performance car isn’t bad.

Whether I will have another RS depends more on timing of the new model rather than the engine. I’m in the minority in not being bothered about turbo’s and having driven an S4 I thought the engine was a peach but lacking a little power. With the proposed 420 ps of the new engine I think it will be an excellent car.

[donrs4]

Nice write-up, thanks. I guesss, in a nutshell: [img]images/graemlins/kissmyrings.gif[/img]

d.