5th Gear Next Week!

[Norrs2]

Notice Tiff Needles is testing the new M3 next week. I'll bet anyone a tenner he will favour it over a RS4.

Every comparison I've ever seen him make between BMW & Audi, he always goes for the BMW!

[audijohn]

Yea cos he can't cope with 4 wheel drive, never could.

[oilman4345]

Yea cos he can't cope with 4 wheel drive, never could.

Needell looked "pretty good " in a 4 wheel drive Gallardo against one of the fastest road bikes being driven by a World Superbike rider!!!
The guy is still a wonderful driver.

[don]

Tiff also likes a car that can drift... quattro never drifts too well

[I-want-an-RS]

Did anyone looking at lastnights show think that the Lambo looked green.

He hates Audis, always has, a few years ago I gave him a spin in my B5 RS around Anglesey track to see how it compaired to the standard cars that he'd drove, all he said was that it was very good but still an Audi so never great

[alex_123_fra]

Tiff also likes a car that can drift... quattro never drifts too well

I agree, he prefers cars that allow "oversteer on tap" and he seems to enjoy his drifting and "scandinavian flicks". He is a great driver and I do like him. The RS4 can actually oversteer and drift relatively well...you just need to have considerable higher corner entry speeds than you would in an M3...which most people are not used to.

[TopBear]

Tiff also likes a car that can drift... quattro never drifts too well

Yep, this is a real bug bear of mine for these TV programmes.

They're supposed to be giving something of an objective appraisal of these sports cars, for us mere mortals who predominatnly drive in straight lines with the driver aids left on.

Yet they insist its somehow relevant to firstly disable all the driver aids, and convince us of the merit in how much they can hang the arse out smoking the rears around a long corner!!
I mean how many of us drive on race tracks every day, or moreover powerslide on and off motorways junctions and roundabouts!!!

It seems more of a Fifth Gear thing with Needel, VBH & Plato guilty in just about every car they drive, though Clarkson and Hamster are just as culpable too.

Were all well aware quattro cars can't do controlled powerslides, yet the somehow think that this is a bad thing, and yet this is a by design safety feature!

RANT OVER

[DoctorD]

Yea cos he can't cope with 4 wheel drive, never could.

Pardon? You did watch his first drive of the Audi R8 did you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a8KXNRm_q4

[DoctorD]

Yet they insist its somehow relevant to firstly disable all the driver aids, and convince us of the merit in how much they can hang the arse out smoking the rears around a long corner!!
I mean how many of us drive on race tracks every day, or moreover powerslide on and off motorways junctions and roundabouts!!!

We learn a lot about the basic dynamics of a car when getting it out of shape, and whenever we do so we prefer to disable all the nannying, get to know how it really behaves and then layer them back on to understand their impact. Despite what you see on the screen or read in the mags, there is a lot more that goes into a road test than the dramatic headline grabbing stuff.

[GardinerG]

rwd powerslides or 4wd wet weather stability. Hmmm, which would be more usefull on UK roads? It's a difficult question methinks!

[DoctorD]

rwd powerslides or 4wd wet weather stability. Hmmm, which would be more usefull on UK roads? It's a difficult question methinks!

The stability benefits are only under traction, but the implication of your point seems to assume that RWD would somehow hamper progress or be harder to control. To be honest, that's a limitation of the driver and not the car.

[Norrs2]

Yet they insist its somehow relevant to firstly disable all the driver aids, and convince us of the merit in how much they can hang the arse out smoking the rears around a long corner!!
I mean how many of us drive on race tracks every day, or moreover powerslide on and off motorways junctions and roundabouts!!!

We learn a lot about the basic dynamics of a car when getting it out of shape, and whenever we do so we prefer to disable all the nannying, get to know how it really behaves and then layer them back on to understand their impact. Despite what you see on the screen or read in the mags, there is a lot more that goes into a road test than the dramatic headline grabbing stuff.

I can accept what your saying is totally correct - and neccessary! It is very useful/relevant on how a car behaves when you overcook it (with/without aids) and you guys are undoubtedly the ones to carry these tests out and relay the results back to propective owners. However, the emphasis on how "good" a car is, seems to me to always be based on how it performs on the "limit" or the track etc etc.

I'm with Topbear in the general sense that most of us will never push a car to those extremes on a public road or seldom see a Track. I also accept that most road tests do offer insight on how a car performs on a day to day basis and what it's like to live with, but I still feel a lot of journalists (no reference to your good self intended) ultimately score a car on it's so called "fun" factor which is usally exploited in a closed arena.

I for one can think of lots of ocasions where the quattro drivetrain has been of much greater benefit to me both in a practical & performance sense over any 2 wheel drive car I've driven in the past). For example, It's less important to me if I can get the tail out in some form of artistic fashion, than whether I can get to work when it's snowing and have a good blast when I want one.

Tiff is a great driver, but he seldom offers any constructive references on how a car is to live with. He's only interested in how it handles on a track and the fun it provides him with and as a result I don't rate him as a informative journalist!

0.000002p worth - rant over!!

[DoctorD]

[

I'm with Topbear in the general sense that most of us will never push a car to those extremes on a public road or seldom see a Track. I also accept that most road tests do offer insight on how a car performs on a day to day basis and what it's like to live with, but I still feel a lot of journalists (no reference to your good self intended) ultimately score a car on it's so called "fun" factor which is usally exploited in a closed arena.

I entirely sympathise with that point of view. I usually attend road tests and driving comparisons as the 'typical customer' who has to live with the cars and can therefore spot some of the factors beyond the showboating. Although I enjoy the showboating too..

Unfortunately, it seems that showboating sells mags (or gets viewers watching TV progs), and that ultimately (and unfortunately) is what all these journalists are in the business of doing. Many of them find this frustrating, but they are driven by the other factors, hopefully if you express your point of view strongly enough then we can keep a better balance in the articles and tests that are published.

[lee,m]

Maybe because he gets free BMW s .............or at least he did spoke to him once at motorshow.

[alex_123_fra]

rwd powerslides or 4wd wet weather stability. Hmmm, which would be more usefull on UK roads? It's a difficult question methinks!

It isn't just wet weather stability that the RS4 is superior in. It applies to dry cold weather (under 10 C) conditions as well which forms a large proportion of our year-round weather. My M3 used to lose traction (almost irrespective of tyres) in dry cold weather so easily, so correcting oversteer just got tedious (even with DSC on). Traction was better following tyre warm-up but only marginally so and this takes a while on cold days (30+ mins).

It wasn't until I drove the Noble that I realised how much better balanced a mid-engined RWD configuration is over a front-engined RWD one. The RS4 is so much more usable in UK conditions due to its traction advantage and for the average driver will offer much more accessible performance.