bethridg
September 10th, 2014, 04:37
Spent 10 days in south Texas visiting family. 1967 miles round trip. 15.5 mpg average (19.7 max, 11.2 min lol). Cruising near triple digits most of the way with air conditioner on icy cold. Had a couple 120+ runs too.
Trip Highlights:
Somewhere on US-69/75 in Oklahoma I had a panic moment. Started feeling an oscillation in the steering wheel coming from the front. All I could think of was the member here that lost an axle a while back. Pulled over, peeked around the tire the best I could but didn't find anything suspicious. After a few cautious miles the pavement changed and it was gone. Phew.
N80 valve nags. (replacement on order now)
Scott @ Advanced Automotion managed to spot me at a stop light and passed along his business card.
On my way back north I came across a blacked out S7 outside Austin with temp plates. I did a quick fly-by then waited for it to catch up. Quickly got bored with the legal speeds they were running so I jumped around them again. They gave chase up to 120ish then backed off. I let off around 150. Effortless.
Takeaways:
The RS is truly a highway bruiser but thirsty...
South TX roads suck. No way I could use this car as a DD there.
I've suspected my car had a tune since I got it back from paint. Prior to, I had only ever seen ~5 psi of boost on my gauge (vagcom logs confirmed real vs requested). Afterwards, it boosts to ~15 psi with very noticeable increase in power. Anyway, after an unspecific amount of time / ignition cycles it goes back into a "limp mode" like before. Battery disconnect resets it and fun time is back. Searching here I saw mentions of early tunes having this symptom. For those of us whom are second-hand owners, is there a way to know if our cars are tuned without PO disclosure?
Trip Highlights:
Somewhere on US-69/75 in Oklahoma I had a panic moment. Started feeling an oscillation in the steering wheel coming from the front. All I could think of was the member here that lost an axle a while back. Pulled over, peeked around the tire the best I could but didn't find anything suspicious. After a few cautious miles the pavement changed and it was gone. Phew.
N80 valve nags. (replacement on order now)
Scott @ Advanced Automotion managed to spot me at a stop light and passed along his business card.
On my way back north I came across a blacked out S7 outside Austin with temp plates. I did a quick fly-by then waited for it to catch up. Quickly got bored with the legal speeds they were running so I jumped around them again. They gave chase up to 120ish then backed off. I let off around 150. Effortless.
Takeaways:
The RS is truly a highway bruiser but thirsty...
South TX roads suck. No way I could use this car as a DD there.
I've suspected my car had a tune since I got it back from paint. Prior to, I had only ever seen ~5 psi of boost on my gauge (vagcom logs confirmed real vs requested). Afterwards, it boosts to ~15 psi with very noticeable increase in power. Anyway, after an unspecific amount of time / ignition cycles it goes back into a "limp mode" like before. Battery disconnect resets it and fun time is back. Searching here I saw mentions of early tunes having this symptom. For those of us whom are second-hand owners, is there a way to know if our cars are tuned without PO disclosure?