Took my R8 into the shop today (The Audi Connection in Montgomery, OH) - was scheduled for regular maintenance and was to be taken in tomorrow, but required a sudden repair today. Fortunately I was only couple miles away when the issue arose. I will start a new thread on this after I write this post.
Anyhow, they had a V10 in the showroom. R-tronic, black on black w/carbon everywhere. 18.4 miles on the odometer.
Okay, flame away at me for having an opinion - I can handle it.
To be honest, I wasn't impressed with the car as much as I should be. I was really expecting a lot more. - mind you, the comments below are just my opinion, so don't take them personally - we're all here to share, right? So I'm sharing!
Exterior:
I've never been a fan of black on black. Been there, done that and I don't ever want a black vehicle again - just don't care for the R8 in black either. Thus far the only three (maybe four) colors I'd consider are the Daytona Gray that mine's in or Silver or White w/Oxygen blades. I'd really like to see one of the blue ones in person. Something tells me that pix of the blue w/carbon trim don't do the car justice.
The Silver V8 w/Oxygen blades sitting on the other side of the showroom looks MUCH better to me.
I really like the Alcantera headliner. Wish I had that in mine.
The wheels are UGLY. Man, they hurt to look at! The OEM V8 rims are simple, elegant and I like them. I like my Dymags even more. Why Audi chose to put these testosterone laden goat horned spoke looking things on the car is beyond me.
The Sigma blades with the wider opening don't flow with the car like the V8's blades do. It has an "add on" look to it that almost looks like the designers just couldn't figure out how to make it functional and still keep the sleek styling of the V8. They just stick out w/o any style flow.
I have had this feeling about the blades as I've looked at the pix of the V10's that have been posted. To see it in person really solidified my feelings about it.
Chrome - have never been a fan, ever... The only chrome left on my R8 is the Quattro badge on the front grill.
I do like the intake and exhaust grills - they're not quite as busy as they are on the V8. I forgot to check and see what the headlights and running lights looked like.
Drive Train:
Ah, the R-tronic transmission. Okay, what the ???? Why would you do that to one of these wonderful machines??? It should only be offered in a 6 speed stick.
I am under the impression that the car "learns" the driving habits of it's owner, so right now this V10 is lax in what it's supposed to do - the system's still in learn mode, not "I know what you want to do" mode. It would be very interesting to drive it after someone else has driven it (aggressively - I don't baby mine) for a while. I'd really like to see how much different it would be.
I drove the car just a tick over 5 miles. All in fairly heavy traffic except for one .5 mile jaunt to about 115 (and it gets there very quickly!)
Easy driving in traffic and it drives and feels like my V8 does. No surprise there. They're pretty much the same platform.
But the shifting of the transmission??? Easy driving and the transmission sort of hesitates between shifts - not a smooth shift, just this funky little hesitation - almost like the engine's having a small fuel starving issue.
It was extremely disconcerting. Gave me this "What did I just do wrong?" feeling.
A little more aggressive on the fun pedal and the shifting got even weirder. As it goes between gears, it feels like the car's actually braking - like a jab at the brake pedal. If I were to compare it to a motocross bike, it feels like the compression braking when I let off the throttle of the bike. Front end dips a tad, you jerk forward in the seat a hair it grabs the next gear and is fine until the next shift.
We had a chance, off a green light that I happened to roll up on w/o anybody in the lane, to stick the fun pedal to the floor. The car takes a deep breath and around 4,500 it suddenly lets out this just amazing howl. The V8 has more of a bellow to it's exhaust note down low, but man oh man, that V10 with the throttle body butterflies wide open and spinning 8K is pure music!
It feels like my V8 has more low end, right off the line (this may be a result of me having a 6 speed stick and this V10 being auto - can't say for sure) and I was actually very disappointed at the low end performance of the V10 - I expected it to push me back in the seat a lot harder, sooner than it did. It puts you back in the seat - don't get me wrong, it just wasn't the tractor that I was expecting. And I have to state, I believe a lot of this to be the difference between the stick and the R-tronic setup. I've not driven anything but the stick so this was a completely different beast.
It feels like my RS6 is much more brutal in power delivery than either the V8 or the V10 R8. It gives you this wonderful feeling of "OH YEA!" as you get sucked into the seats.
The R8's are just so much more sophisticated in delivery that the whoosh factor is a tad lost. (and they are much easier to drive! Twin Turbo lag, followed by Twin Turbo boost can be a handfull - especially in a 4 door sedan)
I found it interesting that instead of shifting just as the engine hit redline, the transmission waited to shift until the engine hit the rev limiter. (is this something that goes away with the push of the sport button?)
Odd. You have this insane drive going, the engine howling it's beautiful song and then for just part of a second, maybe .1 or .2, it goes flat and burbles as it bounces off the limiter before it grabs the next gear (very quickly!) and puts you back in the seat again.
I know that I can keep a much better (feeling) drive with my stick as long as I don't bounce off the limiter, but shift just as it hits redline.
Even though it may sound like I'm crabbing about the power delivery, I'm not - it's amazing. It just wasn't what I was expecting it to be. I believe I was expecting a lot more...
Tires - Someone tell me why Audi puts those nasty bricks of rubber Pirelli's on the R8? Really???
After a very quick jaunt to 115 and then a little ride on the brake pedal, we went into a nice, smooth 270 degree clover leaf (and my salesman - same one that sold me my RS6 six years ago, thank you Mike! - sort of stiffened up and grabbed the door handle) decently hot.
quick side note - first off the car was not mine, second, it had bricks, uh, Pirellis and third, they were brand new, oily Pirellis.
As we entered the corner the car settled in and then became a tad skittish - damn tires suck. It never felt even remotely out of control, just skittish. PS2's would solve this problem completely. Hell, the worn out set presently on my R8 would spank those stupid Pirellis all over the tarmac. Mike looked over at me as we exited the ramp and said "Wow - that was amazing!" - I plan on taking him back through that corner when I pick up mine. He needs to see what one can really do. It was, maybe, an 80 to 85% run through the corner.
Now, I'd like to add a couple things to this:
First, as stated above, this was not my car, so I was being very, very nice to it.
Second - I've never been in the auto version. It's alien to me after putting 30K down with a stick. After some seat time, my feelings about the system may/could change.
Third - I never changed any settings on the car other than to hit the magnetic ride control as we entered the clover leaf, so there's a very good chance that a lot of what I was "missing" was just a push of the sport button away. Can't say. Never pushed it - heck, never seen one until this afternoon.
Overall I'm very glad I got to drive the V10 - and when my V8's worn completely out I'll look into one. - but there's no way it will have the R-tronic in it.
I was impressed with the power plant, but the transmission got in the way (for me). I expected more grunt out of it, but all that is put behind as soon as the V10 is given a chance to breath.
Rock on, Audi! Rock on!
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Originally Posted by The Pretender
That's Rami's perspective :cool2:
