Smooth Ride

Finally have the RS6 running right. After the corrections by Griffin Motorwerke, the car rides soo smoothly. I haven't driven the R32 in over a week and need to but with the hyperspace speed available in the Audi.. haven't felt the urge.

RS6 back from service

So I finally got the DRC factory recall work done on the RS6.. That took far too long. first the AUDI server estimate was 5 hours.. that turned in to 5 days (over a weekend) because they did not have the parts. Why tell me the estimate was 5 hours then?? lame, so I did not take the loaner because I was driving my R32.

So I goto pick up the car and no joke the steering wheel is pointing at the two O'clock position.. I ask and they say that the alignment was not included in the recall work. WTF!!?? "oh we had to replace your tires but the air is not part of that service". You can't replace suspensions without re-aligning a car.. so I figure screw then I'll take it to a tuner to get the alignment done. 5 minutes down the freeway and I get a crazy warning light (turned out to be the headlight leveling failure light) and the traction control lights come on. Okay.. Pull over check tires.. look up the warning code. Ugh I have to get wife and daughter to airport in an hour. I go home and after an airport run in wifes car call Audi and they tell me to bring it back. Did they even test drive it??!!

Turned out that the technician forgot to connect some sensors to the suspension. That made the headlight levelers fail, the traction control was tripped because I was going 70mph while turning (since the steering wheel was so out of whack). They say that they can do the alignment but its $400.00, but they'll give me a coupon for 100.00 to make it $300 or so. Okay. A few days later (after taking the loaner and beating the shit out of it), I get the car back and the steering wheel is straight and I head out.

At some point in the next 2 weeks something goes wrong and suddenly the steering wheel is pointing at two O'clock again and there is rattling. I call the good ole boys at AUDI and they say " that should not happen, can you tow it in?" Goddamnit!!. NO. So I drive it on back streets down the peninsula and they don't have a loaner. The guy who is giving me a ride home says that they don't go that far. I tell him then you need to get me to some place that can get me home or I'm coming home with him for dinner. He takes me home.

Two days later I get a call that they can't work on the alignment because I have aftermarket equipment. (Kmax strut mounts I think.) They will gladly replace them with factory for a mere 1200.00 no including labor. Holy christ these guys suck balls!.

So I drive my R32 for a week or so and take to to Griffin Motorwerks in berkeley, ca and they a) know the issue, b) have any parts needed just in case, c) can do an alignment all for 350.0. also they ended up having to reset the steering program so to reset where it thought center was (probably how audi got it straight the first time).

Now its sweet again. Never going back to Carlson audi again.

Epic Bay Area Drive

This week I had the good fortune of having time and inspiration to head out for a drive. What I ended up with was more than a drive it was a what I imagine a world class drive would be. There are places that don't have miles of beautiful hills with really good driving sections. Many places in california are flat and boring. Not this drive. New music, check. Decent weather, check. Mid-weekday and no traffic, check. Route, check.

I would be following hwy 35 from hwy 92 south to hwy 9. taking it to santa cruz through Boulder Creek and Felton, up hwy 1 to Pescadero for lunch (not Duarte's, but the gas station across the street for a couple quick tacos *really good and quick), Continueing up pescadero rd over the hill to then connect with hwy 84 to skylonda and on to woodside. The trip was 128 miles and took about 3 hours including lunch.

The steed that would take me on this epic drive was my R32. I have been considering selling it since my purchase of an RS6 a couple months ago, but that day I decided to take it out for one more driving day. I may have fallen in love with it again. The sounds that car makes on those roads are what car nuts love. It was such a throaty, low sound, escalating to a more purposeful wail when really on the gas.. it was great. Driving the sound louder and louder could easily get someone in trouble since a portion of you pushes just to hear it, when the road in front starts to twist slightly sharper and tighter. But I am here writing this so all is well.

I started late morning and it was still a little foggy at the top of hwy 35 near hwy 92 and the canopy was letting in light that reflected off the fog. It could have been anywhere in the world. I was probably always about 5-10mph over the posted speed. I had a radar detector incase of speed traps, but with the state budget the way it is I doubted any patrols were wasting their time up there. I certainly exceeded reasonable speed at times, but never beyond my capabilities and trust in my car.

It takes time to get that feeling from a car when pushing harder than normal, but there comes a point where you and the car are one. It does not last, but there are sections of road that you really want to turn around and drive again especially if there is traffic. Like a do-over. But there were times when I wanted to do that even when there were no cars, it was that good.

This is a drive you should do alone and with some good driving music. I gambled on some new music I had not yet heard other than one song, but the whole cd turned out great. Phoenix - 'Wolfgang Amadeus' provided the score for a memorable day that rivals track day memories and even rally racing memories I have.

Next time is in the RS6 after it gets its factory suspension recall work done (in progress.. eta 5 days???!!).

Driving the 2003 Audi RS6

I just bought a prestine example of the awesome, unstopable RS6. It is absolutely amazing.. There are soo many cliche's about speed, but the best might be that it takes the horizon and head butt's it. Stupid fast.. Mine is a low 32K mile example that was chipped by Griffen Motorwerke in berkeley Ca. It now has 510 hp. It looks new. It should since it was garaged its whole life.
I have always wanted one of these cars. When I heard that they were coming to the USA I knew they would be expensive, but people were paying premiums over the $85 price tags. Mine was purchased for $96k. It was a year later that is was chipped by MTM for another $3k. This is obviously way too much for a car, but 32K sure isn't :).
One of the best things is that my daughter yells 'Woohoo!!' whenever I hit the loud pedal.. This was not a purchase taken lightly. But it was a case where the opportunity may not have come again and I would have regreted it for a very long time.

Test Driving the Mercedes C63 and BMW M3

I am a big fan of driving new cars. Especially when the new car is a performance model like the RS4 or in the case of my more recent test drives the Mercedes C63 and the Bmw M3 sedan. Both are great fun. If I had driven the DCT transmission in the M3 they would have been more similar and easier to compare. I will get out sometime and drive the DCT sometime. Until then I only have the sensations of the manual M3 to recall.
My first merge out of the dealership was a little rough since I was a little too delicate with the throttle at first, almost stalling. I could tell the bmw guy was thinking.. 'great' another poser learning to drive stick in a new car. Not to worry. I suggested a slightly longer drive down a narrower and twisty road that would eventually connect back to where he wanted to go and he said sure. We sped up the freeway merging effortlessly. I could see an audi A6 preparing to pass me in the left lane as though I was going to slow him down, but.. bye bye sucka! I got to 100mph pretty fast and leveled for a couple exits. Even up hill at freeway speeds the car just moved with ease. Pressing the 'Power' button made the throttle reaction times lower, making the car feel like you hit a nitrous button or something. It was illusion of course but effective none the less. As we headed toward the twisty circuit I had suggested I noticed just how planted that car feels compared to any other car I have driven. It stops from the bottom up. No dive or pitch feeling at all. Very confidence inspiring. I did not really wring out the car so I was not able to hear any sound track which was disappointing because I really like the sound track from the back of my R32. There is something about a nice day and a great road accompanied by a great exhaust sound bouncing off the surrounding scenery.
On to the Merc C63. That test drive was one of the shortest I have ever been on. The hard part was getting past the 'are you qualified to pay for let alone drive this car' banter I had to get through to even be able to get to the car. They did not have one on the lot so we had to drive an E63 to go get it nearby. Most of our time was spend doing that. Once we got to the C63 in the over-flow lot we went down the freeway 1 exit and had to turn back to the dealership which was 2 exits back the other way.. lame. But, starting that car is like waking up the God of Thunder. the car felt very solid and the auto-box was sooo nice I could see forgetting about a manual. Putting it in sport mode prompts down shift throttle blips which just put a huge smile on my face. It is a little silly to be making THAT much noise in a fairly sedate looking car but its still fun. Its also really fast. Stomp the loud pedal and whoosh you are in the next county. The seat was perfect, the steering was exactly where I would have wanted it to be. Everything felt right at home. I wish I could have taken that car on the same drive as the M3.. who knows maybe I'll go back and convince them to go for another drive.

2009 Audi A4 3.2

Last Fall Audi invited me and a few other Audi enthusiasts to drive the newest version of the A4 at Infineon raceway in Sonoma California. Of course I accepted and took the day off work to head north to wine country and check out the new ride. Normally I would not have bothered to test drive the standard version of a car like the A4 without being teased with the opportunity to drive a tuned version like an S4 or RS4. In this case it was one of the first times the car has been offered to the public to drive and would not be in the show rooms for a few months. Additionally it was at Infineon raceway... You can't go to a dealership and ask to test drive their marquee car at Infineon.
So how was the car? Very nice. I was suprised at how fast we were going because it felt absolutely stable through the bends. The car was quiet, but there was an underlying bellow at higher rpms that reassured me that I was indeed moving quickly. The only option for a transmission was a CVT and it was super smooth. Set in Dynamic mode, the throttle response, suspension dampening and steering all work together to tighten things up.
They had 4 groups of 4 cars each on the track at the same time. Everyone got their own car with a radio hooked up to the radio system so that you can hear the leader and follow instructions or warnings. Our group had to slow down twice to a crawl so that we could power through the esses to the hairpin. We were moving 30sec a lap faster than the group ahead. Once reason was the luck of the draw. We were all good drivers and could keep our lines tidy, enabling the leader to push us harder and faster. The other reason was that the car was very easy to drive fast.
The car I drove was red with a tan interior. The LED lights in front were a new thing a la the R8 and it worked. It made it look more sporty that I expected. All in all I could see myself buying one, but not as a first choice. I think I would wait until the new S4 came out or found a deal on an M3 Sedan or Merc C63 or something. I left the raceway in my R32 and found I would have missed the throaty sound of a sports car missing in the A4. It was a great drive home though.