S7 on loan

[andy]

Just spent the day with an S7 on loan whilst my RS6 gets serviced. Really torn about this car now I've just got home from a night playing with it. I think my over ridding feeling is, nice car but just not for me. It takes the disconnected feeling that the C6 RS6 gets tarnished with to a new level, I know it's going really fast but I just didn't have any fun getting there.

I will admit that I'm not the best at right ups but I will try and put my initial thoughts down and try and make some sense, bear with me though as at its late and I'm tired

Immediate thoughts on getting in the car were 1) it's really quiet after getting out of my RS with a Milltek system, to be expected though. 2) what a superb cabin, tech, comfort, luxury, just such a nice place to be. I can imagine that hundreds of miles could be dispatched in this car and you would get out the other end just as fresh as you entered. The RS has some nice toys in it but I quickly thought that it was showing its age internally but this interior is bang up to date with pretty much everything you could want for and I love the DIS, extremely clear, coupled with the HUD provided you with so much info. Yep, cabin of this car is a great place to be. Best bit of the cabin for me though was when I went out to the car in the dark and opened the doors, I loved the lit S7 on the kick plates I also experienced the most annoying part of this car whilst driving at night, I found no matter how I adjusted the driving position I kept on finding the dials reflected onto the windscreen, really bugged me.

Had a play around with the various driving modes and I could see that this car should be great to live with as a daily driver from the efficiency point of view. Although I haven't racked up a huge amount of miles today you could really see the amount of tech that has gone into this engine to try and keep the average mpg much more manageable. Drop the car into Efficiency mode and on steady low speed driving whereas the RS would start to guzzle through fuel, the S7 was getting better and better mpg by keeping the revs low and switching into 4 cylinder mode whenever the load was light, not to mention the stop/start tech that was actually quite un-intrusive to me.

However the disappointment to me came when opening up that V8. I'm not saying it doesn't shift, it really does but it just didn't have much sense of drama about it. I thought the C6 was a little soulless in this area as its such a smooth combination of power delivery, gearbox and 2T mass but you still do know when the car is in S mode and you plant your right foot, it really shifts! The S7 though just didn't excite me and I found myself planting my foot to the floor quite often just to see if I had missed something. There was noise from the V8, revs, speed but no fun or sense of occasion. I felt that I got over the initial excitement of this car within an hour or so and it would soon settle down to be just a nice car to own but nothing really special like the RS. When I pop the RS into S mode it really comes alive and I feel like its encouraging me to thrash it, plant my foot, over take that next row of cars....... The S7 I could happily just bimble around in S mode without really thinking about my next overtake or going past my home turning to go find that nice bit of road I like, it didn't make me want to go drive it for no other reason than to just have fun.

I could be missing the point though of this car. Coming from an RS I'm expecting drama and excitement in the drive and a sense of occasion every time I press that Start button. Is this what an S model is meant to do? Or is it meant to be a luxury, fast cruiser? If so then this car is spot on, it is a sublime place to be but it didn't make laugh out loud when I put my foot down like the RS does.

See how I feel about it tomorrow......

[535dboy]

Plonk some pics up then!

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quite

--> quiet

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It's hard to compare in a sense - the S6 is obviously going to be tuned for fast but comfortable where as the RS6 has another 120-140 hp on tap.
To me I do think you hit it bang on - The S is fast + luxury + cruiser.

[MikeFish]

If it was fast AND fun then nobody would buy the RS7.

[andy]

Couple of shonky pics from my iPhone;





And I now have this to play with until Friday as they broke my RS6 today, kinda bitter sweet

[andy]

Finally gave the S7 back today and picked up my RS6, really been looking forward to that! Immediate thoughts after getting back into my RS was that it felt old in comparison to the S7. Most of the tech in the S7 is the same as the RS6 but it is just presented in a more refined and polished way. It generally had a more modern feeling about it which made stepping back into the RS feel like a step back in time. This is not a bad thing for the RS and just shows that the new generations of Audi's have moved on nicely and are becoming more refined with each iteration of the brand. The seats are harder and less supportive in the RS and this lead me to start fiddling with the adjustments whereas the S7 just felt right straight away. Little thing I did notice is that the new keys are going to start looking old very quickly, the S7 logo was already beginning to rub off and this car was only 2K miles old.

Starting the RS immediately gave me that sense of occasion that the S7 missed, that V10 just sounds so purposeful and I have been missing during my week without the RS. Driving away I noticed the steering wheel felt so much better in my hands, the S7 wheel was very skinny and I really didn't like that. The steering was much lighter in the S7 with a slight disconnected feel about it. To be honest though it was very difficult to feel if the RS was better, although it was certainly much heavier, as I could only blat it home down a short bit of dual carriage way. When I say blat this was the interesting bit for me, selected S and put my foot down, ah yes, there it was, the insane giggle as the RS6 shows just what it can do! I love the way that V10 revs and this 2T car suddenly goes to warp factor 10! I know the S7 was shy by 170bhp but it just never really impressed when it took off and for a car with 414bhp I was slightly disappointed.

This is the concern I have for the new RS6. Living with the S7 for a week now I can see that the cabin and most of the tech I have enjoyed is pretty much the same as the new RS6, the interior pics look identical. The engine will be the same 4ltr V8 with an additional 150bhp, but will all this refinement dull the experience as it has in the S7? I really hope not I and I hope that Audi have something special up their sleeves to make this new RS6 feel and go like an RS model should.

Just to mention the boring subject of fuel economy for a moment, although the S7 has all the new technology like Stop/Start and 4 cylinder mode, it really didn't provide that much better economy over the week. Had a lot of varied driving that saw low teens around town and too and fro from work plus some steady cruises on the motorways at 64mph which produced an average of 28mpg. Overall though, I still put in about £90 of fuel for a weeks driving which is about the same as I do in the RS from week to week. This is where I struggle to see the point of the S7, really very nice car to drive but its performance is hidden and I am left wondering if the penalty for fuel is worth paying in such a car? I know every time I start up the RS why my running costs are so high and I enjoy it every day but the S7, not so sure. Dare I say it but I wonder if it would be a better car with a big turbo oil burner in there? I know, I'll get my coat for daring to suggest such a thing but that's where I'm left after using the car every day for the last week.

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Interesting - I was looking at the a6 brochure and noticed the bi turbo 3.0 a6... 44 mpg and 5 seconds to 60...

[Ian_C]

....steady cruises on the motorways at 64mph which produced an average of 28mpg.....

Thats not great. I was hoping it would be better with the long top gear. I've never gone that slow in mine to 'experiment', but I'd imagine 28 mpg would be possible at 64 mph. I get 26 maybe 27 on the 100 mile trip up the M1 to relatives on the occasions I've got my mum in the passenger seat haha!

[andy]

Yes I was a bit surprised that I couldn't get the average any higher. Which is why I deliberately set the cruise at a low speed and sat back and enjoyed the ride for a run of approx 60 miles both ways to see what it would return. The highest average I saw was 28.8mpg whereas on a similar run in the RS I have achieved 27mpg! There is a nice fuel economy gauge in the S7, and I guess all the new gen Audi's, which shows the average but also the current mapped alongside. On this I was seeing plenty of plus 30's and even over 40 on occasion but the average was still sub 30mpg.

Two more points to raise in comparison between the RS6 and S7, firstly the brakes, much better in the S7. The feel better from the off with far more bite. No idea how how this will translate to constant heavy breaking on a track but that's not my area but for the road they were superb. Secondly, squeaks and rattles, there were none in the S7 whereas my RS has loads by comparison which really bugs me for a car of this price!

[HYFR]

3.0 biTDI ftw

[andy]

Agreed

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Brakes are probably a much softer compoun so work much better when cold. But as you say likely to go off under heavy constant use.

I have to say the bi turbo is an interesting curveball...
Almost te same performance as the s6 with all the same toys but over 5k cheaper. Also it has the 8 speed box used in the rs6 c7 so I am guessing the s tronic unit has a lower max torque thresholds. Given how easy it is to tune a modern diesel I think that the bi turbo could be the pick of te range at the moment.

[HYFR]

MRC have already tuned one ... 380PS

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Thought so - that probably translates to a bucket load of extra torque down low so probably a good match for the S6.
Guessing a remap without having to do too much but still, 126ps / litre from an oil burner is not to be sniffed at.