Discussion
In Audi news I sold the BMW after 6 days in the classifieds to a nice young gent on the last day before lockdown. Result!
I should mention that the car has a name. I know this is considered the height of gauche on pistonheads but he's called Rolf. We've named the last few cars we've had (Juan the Evo, Larry the F-150 and Günther the BMW) and it seemed like a tradition. We went through a list of German drivers (whilst in Germany in many pubs), I voted on Walter for obvious Audi reasons but it didn't feel right. Rolf Stommelen notched up 63 Grands Prix starts, was the first man to hit 350kph on the Mulsanne when he was driving a 917, was the fastest driver down Mulsanne another year in a 935, even against the prototypes and once finished second in the Nürburgring 300 in a 936 after having the throttle jam open on lap 6 - he turned off the engine for corners. Legend.
Last weekend we were booked into Sunday lunch at a pub out in the Chilterns for the last weekend before lockdown. There are some valves in the exhaust that open on cold start and above 4000rpm and I was keen to have them open all the time. To do this, you take off some trim in the engine carbon compartment, disconnect a couple of hoses and plug the ends up - the computer thinks it's closing the valves, your car is slightly louder and everyone is happy. So trim piece removal is a piece of piss, right? Except in the the drizzle, except parked in the road with an Uber driver right behind staring at you whole time, except when the boot/bonnet closes on your wife's head because you've had to remove one of the struts, except when the trim doesn't want to sneak past various sensors and except when you can't remove the plug from the sodding engine bay light. We're running into our time limit for getting out to the pub so we button it back up and head off. Audi 1, seefarr 0.
I mapped a twisty route beforehand and managed to actually find some open roads and corners which is something of a miracle this close to London. The last stretch of road, there's only one guy in front and he puts his indicators on to turn into a T-Junction just as the "twisty road ahead" sign comes up. You beauty. Instead of turning off straight away he stops and gesticulates a bloke approaching his centenary out in a weezy Renault Bluerghe. There's no one behind me so blokey could have gotten out after I went through - you can be too polite sometimes!
Round two for the exhaust this weekend and it goes well. I park off the road in front of someone else's garage that never gets used and with minimal swearing, we're done. Using an extendable ski pole as a temporary bonnet strut was a stroke of genius if I do say so! It's not transformative or in any way obnoxious but there's certainly more V8 woofle at low rpm and the gratuitous throttle blip down shifts are much more amusing round town. It doesn't seem to have impacted the noise when cruising at all as well which is nice. For the price (£2 for some hose plugs, some scratched carbon fibre trim and much swearing) I'd say it's worth it! But why didn't they make it like this in the first place?
I should mention that the car has a name. I know this is considered the height of gauche on pistonheads but he's called Rolf. We've named the last few cars we've had (Juan the Evo, Larry the F-150 and Günther the BMW) and it seemed like a tradition. We went through a list of German drivers (whilst in Germany in many pubs), I voted on Walter for obvious Audi reasons but it didn't feel right. Rolf Stommelen notched up 63 Grands Prix starts, was the first man to hit 350kph on the Mulsanne when he was driving a 917, was the fastest driver down Mulsanne another year in a 935, even against the prototypes and once finished second in the Nürburgring 300 in a 936 after having the throttle jam open on lap 6 - he turned off the engine for corners. Legend.
Last weekend we were booked into Sunday lunch at a pub out in the Chilterns for the last weekend before lockdown. There are some valves in the exhaust that open on cold start and above 4000rpm and I was keen to have them open all the time. To do this, you take off some trim in the engine carbon compartment, disconnect a couple of hoses and plug the ends up - the computer thinks it's closing the valves, your car is slightly louder and everyone is happy. So trim piece removal is a piece of piss, right? Except in the the drizzle, except parked in the road with an Uber driver right behind staring at you whole time, except when the boot/bonnet closes on your wife's head because you've had to remove one of the struts, except when the trim doesn't want to sneak past various sensors and except when you can't remove the plug from the sodding engine bay light. We're running into our time limit for getting out to the pub so we button it back up and head off. Audi 1, seefarr 0.
I mapped a twisty route beforehand and managed to actually find some open roads and corners which is something of a miracle this close to London. The last stretch of road, there's only one guy in front and he puts his indicators on to turn into a T-Junction just as the "twisty road ahead" sign comes up. You beauty. Instead of turning off straight away he stops and gesticulates a bloke approaching his centenary out in a weezy Renault Bluerghe. There's no one behind me so blokey could have gotten out after I went through - you can be too polite sometimes!
Round two for the exhaust this weekend and it goes well. I park off the road in front of someone else's garage that never gets used and with minimal swearing, we're done. Using an extendable ski pole as a temporary bonnet strut was a stroke of genius if I do say so! It's not transformative or in any way obnoxious but there's certainly more V8 woofle at low rpm and the gratuitous throttle blip down shifts are much more amusing round town. It doesn't seem to have impacted the noise when cruising at all as well which is nice. For the price (£2 for some hose plugs, some scratched carbon fibre trim and much swearing) I'd say it's worth it! But why didn't they make it like this in the first place?
No update in a while but we haven't done much interesting bar a couple of drives out to the countryside for lunches.
We both had to take a week holiday before the end of the year and we've been holding off until the last minute in the hope of some clarity. We toyed with the idea of flying somewhere warm and sunny but the uncertainty and the fact that we've just bought an expensive new car meant we were driving somewhere. And we can't really leave Britain, so we went down to Cornwall for a winter seaside pootle.
The trip down was the easiest we've done, probably unsurprisingly. The Audi really does seem to eat up the miles and we arrived feeling nice and fresh to St. Ives. And it averaged an incredibly frugal 23mpg - new record!
The weather forecast was looking as hopeful as you could imagine for a British winter by the sea.
But we had glimpses of what could be.
Sunday was spent resting and patronising local hostelries. Monday we gradually got up and drove down to Land's End via the B3306 and its a hell of a road. The first bit from St. Ives was lovely and empty and we got to open the car up. We were incredibly lucky with traffic, always meeting buses at a bus stop (on our side) or a wide enough bit not to have to reverse (coming on the other direction). And it was dry! We waited once for traffic in a layby, pulling out as soon as we had someone appear in the rear view and had a whale of a drive.
Still haven't washed the car after 2000 miles through Germany and the trip down to Cornwall!
On the way back we stopped off in a muddy layby to go tramp through a field to a 3500 year old stone circle. Who says an R8 can't do it all?
We both had to take a week holiday before the end of the year and we've been holding off until the last minute in the hope of some clarity. We toyed with the idea of flying somewhere warm and sunny but the uncertainty and the fact that we've just bought an expensive new car meant we were driving somewhere. And we can't really leave Britain, so we went down to Cornwall for a winter seaside pootle.
The trip down was the easiest we've done, probably unsurprisingly. The Audi really does seem to eat up the miles and we arrived feeling nice and fresh to St. Ives. And it averaged an incredibly frugal 23mpg - new record!
The weather forecast was looking as hopeful as you could imagine for a British winter by the sea.
But we had glimpses of what could be.
Sunday was spent resting and patronising local hostelries. Monday we gradually got up and drove down to Land's End via the B3306 and its a hell of a road. The first bit from St. Ives was lovely and empty and we got to open the car up. We were incredibly lucky with traffic, always meeting buses at a bus stop (on our side) or a wide enough bit not to have to reverse (coming on the other direction). And it was dry! We waited once for traffic in a layby, pulling out as soon as we had someone appear in the rear view and had a whale of a drive.
Still haven't washed the car after 2000 miles through Germany and the trip down to Cornwall!
On the way back we stopped off in a muddy layby to go tramp through a field to a 3500 year old stone circle. Who says an R8 can't do it all?
Thanks for the kind words!
On the subject of usability, our apartment in St Ives is on a hill and the parking is a reverse park that has to be be made uphill. The Audi hates doing anything slowly at full lock as the front diff binds up so making that park on day one was not fun. Stall, stall, clutch odour and regret. I think it's called character.
Tuesday we headed off to The Lizard which is an amusing name for the most Southerly point of mainland Britain. Off to the B3302 which is a great road we had mostly to ourselves, through Helston and onto the A3083 which was busy enough we couldn't build up too much of a head of steam.
But on the way back the gods of petrol heads smiled upon us and we had the A road completely to ourselves and it was magic. Fast and well sighted and then down to slow and tight. There was water on the road so I was short shifting and using the lovely woofly V8 torque more than the banshee high end but but apart from that, best drive in 12 years in Britain for me!
We lunched in a great pub in Porthleven called The Ship with a view of the ocean, quaffable pints and a mean crab nachos.
I've got to say, most of the B roads down this end of Cornwall have been double lanes and not busy. Winter down here might be a bit of forgotten drivers haven? Having said that, we have found our share of roads that are exactly 1.0 Audis wide.
On the subject of usability, our apartment in St Ives is on a hill and the parking is a reverse park that has to be be made uphill. The Audi hates doing anything slowly at full lock as the front diff binds up so making that park on day one was not fun. Stall, stall, clutch odour and regret. I think it's called character.
Tuesday we headed off to The Lizard which is an amusing name for the most Southerly point of mainland Britain. Off to the B3302 which is a great road we had mostly to ourselves, through Helston and onto the A3083 which was busy enough we couldn't build up too much of a head of steam.
But on the way back the gods of petrol heads smiled upon us and we had the A road completely to ourselves and it was magic. Fast and well sighted and then down to slow and tight. There was water on the road so I was short shifting and using the lovely woofly V8 torque more than the banshee high end but but apart from that, best drive in 12 years in Britain for me!
We lunched in a great pub in Porthleven called The Ship with a view of the ocean, quaffable pints and a mean crab nachos.
I've got to say, most of the B roads down this end of Cornwall have been double lanes and not busy. Winter down here might be a bit of forgotten drivers haven? Having said that, we have found our share of roads that are exactly 1.0 Audis wide.
Edited by seefarr on Thursday 17th December 17:50
andy97 said:
firemunki said:
Lots of hidden rock in them, you soon learn exactly how wide your car is, and how clueless the tourist lot are!
My heart would be in my mouth with such a nice wide car.
Exackerly!My heart would be in my mouth with such a nice wide car.
but it must have just been stick or leaf drag through the thick grime made it look bad so no harm. 
seefarr said:
I've got to say, most of the B roads down this end of Cornwall have been double lanes and not busy. Winter down here might be a bit of forgotten drivers haven?
I think I tempted fate there! The last few days in Cornwall were wet. People were building arks and we were driving around in an R8 at greatly reduced pace. We drove down to Falmouth one day and tried exploring some B roads but everything seemed flooded. As well as being camber sensitive, the Audi tries to dive at the edge of the road if you go through a large puddle, so we stuck to A roads.Heading back towards London we went via Dartmoor. We seemed to be following a pretty serious storm so had wet roads the whole way. Dartmoor was still fun and dead empty except for a few very hardy souls out walking. We also saw some small horses but I took a picture of the car.
We stopped at a pub for lunch, then on to the Fleet Air Museum. Managed to acrete some proper filth by then!
Stayed the night in another pub in Somerset then a dull drive back into London and Tier 4 with a side order of "Christmas is cancelled".
Another great time away in this ridiculous car. Still makes me grin when I see it and laugh like a loon when it reaches 8000rpm.
The Audi has not been doing many miles recently for obvious reasons - occasional trips to the shops to keep the battery ticking over. But we got the "service due" notification recently so booked that in with "Audi VW Specialist Centre" in Harrow who seem to have a good record with RS stuff. The car was due a full service for this one (which I hadn't noticed when I bought it) so 8 new spark plugs and a few more filters were added to the standard service. The call when it came was a long one though...
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days.
The car also had a leaking front shock that would need replacing and there was play in some rear suspension bits. You'd have thought that this would have been picked up in the MOT and 600'000 point RAC check done by the dealership? Surely this isn't the reason they did the MOT, even though it wasn't due for another 5 months? I called up the dealership about the 6 month warranty they promised (and that I'd chased about a half dozen other times) that had yet to materialise and surprisingly, it didn't exist! After a bit of back and forth they have pointed out the the policy wouldn't have covered the rear suspension anyway (wear and tear) so I've got money for the front shock. So I guess the moral of the story is don't hand over your money until you get everything promised and get an independent inspection. Especially when dealing with posh Tod's-and-linen-trouser wearing, chablis-quaffing b
ds.
So we are at £2200 for two front shocks and the rear gubbins on top of the service. And the front tyres are at 2mm so it needs four new boots, but given that I'm not driving it anywhere, that can wait until next month! Wasn't the R8 supposed to be the sensible choice?
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days.
The car also had a leaking front shock that would need replacing and there was play in some rear suspension bits. You'd have thought that this would have been picked up in the MOT and 600'000 point RAC check done by the dealership? Surely this isn't the reason they did the MOT, even though it wasn't due for another 5 months? I called up the dealership about the 6 month warranty they promised (and that I'd chased about a half dozen other times) that had yet to materialise and surprisingly, it didn't exist! After a bit of back and forth they have pointed out the the policy wouldn't have covered the rear suspension anyway (wear and tear) so I've got money for the front shock. So I guess the moral of the story is don't hand over your money until you get everything promised and get an independent inspection. Especially when dealing with posh Tod's-and-linen-trouser wearing, chablis-quaffing b
ds. So we are at £2200 for two front shocks and the rear gubbins on top of the service. And the front tyres are at 2mm so it needs four new boots, but given that I'm not driving it anywhere, that can wait until next month! Wasn't the R8 supposed to be the sensible choice?
"8 new spark plugs and a few more filters were added to the standard service.
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
LetsTryAgain said:
"8 new spark plugs and a few more filters were added to the standard service.
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
No I wasn't unhappy with the price at all - I've come from paying similar amounts for servicing and fettling a 3-series. The shock had been noted as leaking or misting in some service paperwork from a few years ago so I figured it was probably best not to put it off, and as long as you're doing one you should do the matching one!The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
seefarr said:
No I wasn't unhappy with the price at all - I've come from paying similar amounts for servicing and fettling a 3-series. The shock had been noted as leaking or misting in some service paperwork from a few years ago so I figured it was probably best not to put it off, and as long as you're doing one you should do the matching one!
Always replace in pairs across an axle, indeed.Be worth it on the next European trip.
LetsTryAgain said:
"8 new spark plugs and a few more filters were added to the standard service.
The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
I didn’t think that bit sounded too bad given that BMW will charge me £700 for the second service on my car which includes 6 plugs.The alternator belt was heavily cracked and needed replacing and the the brake fluid was getting old so we changed that too. All of the above came to a tickle over £900 and done in two days."
That work for that money isn't too daft at all.
I dare say the shock wasn't leaking that bad - probably a misting of oil.
Would have needed replacing eventually if it's started leaking, but it could probably have waited.
The other bits are a bit of a pain having bought the car from a dealer and their checks.
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