Says the man who has a caterpillar bulldozery thingy!! :D

Hey hang on a mo there it's not just a Catapiller D5B Dozer it's a S D5B, because it has more power than the one 10 years before :p

I'm not trying to take anything away from any of the models as i do like them really (even the oil burners) but the S badges used to be retained for the really special models. Just look at the original S1 for instance, bearing in mind we’re we are talking early to mid 80’s the 2.1 5 pot engine producing 500+ bhp, massive turbo lag that made for no low end grunt but to overcome this they fitted anti lag. A system that threw fuel (PETROL) down in the turbo to keep it spinning, even when the throttle was closed. This made huge bangs and exhaust flames that would make old people pee themselves. Now that’s what an S should be, not the van that brought it there. Don’t even get me started on the Pikes Peak version produced when Group B was banned :love: i think Mouton still holds the record for going up over there 25 years ago!!

So ok maybe I got a little carried away there and not all S’s should be like that but you know what I mean.

I dont know why I'm arguing I actually agree with you totally! :rolleyes:

£370 to be precise.

I'm not ungrateful, the insignia I drove a few years ago was yucky but...

That car is £45,000 ish with the options on it. That's ten times what I would spend on a car. for that it has to be good, no, make that great. It's ok but if it was something I'd just got off the fore court for that money I would be kicking myself. Not worth it. A manual TT V6 rs, an S4 maybe, now that's a different matter.

In comparison to an S8 from £3-6k it's laughable. The whole status thing of driving a new car would have to matter to me, if that was the case i'd have a 997 carrera 2s on a private plate.

Well I finally got mine back today, no comments about the quality of the repair here, oh no, another whole new thread with photo's for that.

My seating position had been moved and i'd never saved it so was perched and weird until I sorted it. Steering much nicer than a5, wheel the same size if not smaller than a5, must have been the differing rim thickness that threw me, along with the ghastly overweighting at speed that tries to simulate feel. How the hell does that get passed for production?
Seats softer and feel lovely to be back in. Instant, LINEAR, powerrrr. Nice. For a 14 year old engine and gearbox I'm very impressed.
My brakes are crap. First inch or two of travel provides the braking you would employ rolling up to a red light, only really bites if you STOMP on the pedal compared to the A5.
my concert is on a par with the B&O setup in the A5. I'm a hifi nerd so spent half an hour fiddling in the a5 to improve matters. Touch crisper response at the extremes of the frequency range from the B&O setup. Soundstage a touch better and defined too but not much in it. How crap is the standard install I wonder?

600 miles later I wouldn't touch one with a bargepole. Wife loved it however, so it would seem Audi make girl's cars now.

I read this with real interest. I have an 06 A8 diesel. To be fair it's got all the toys thanks to the previous owner. When I had it serviced the local Audi independant specialist loaned me his 07 plate S4. Decent of him I know BUT the difference in car was staggering.

The S4 went like the wind and sounded great....and did 18mpg :rolleyes:

....but the overall feel was not a patch on my own A8, from the seating, the dashboard, the build was even different quality. I had the A8 remapped and it won't compete with an S4, nor am I suggesting it will - but as a family saloon that ticks many other boxes - it's nippy enough.

I guess the issue is that even if a car is a few years old....in it's day it was a high price range topper and tbh that doesn't alter, gadget and electronics do and there is the key difference....

so to compare a new A5 to an old S8....I would go with an older S8 all day long...

I used to have Ford RS's....I have the same thoughts over the 'softening' of that badge too...and the introduction of the ST range....the Audi S cars should be special, not sure we all need a nuclear explosion at the rear each time we change gear.....Walter Rohrl may disagree !!

Mate of mine just got a "new" (2000 miles or so "ex-demo" 12-plate) A5 S-line sportback 3.0 TDi and I saw it today for the first time...

He likes it and his wife likes (and drives) it and likes the Bose audio. Engine he reckons is superb (for a diesel) - he had an S4 estate before.

Looks good from the outside too, but the interior just looks like a VW - hard black plastic. It even has manual seat adjustement! :tuttut:

What are they selling you blokes in the UK? Here in the States we supposedly get fewer options and fewer models (most Avants have been dropped, no diesels in certain cars, etc.), but the cars we're getting feel special. They don't have nary the lack of quality I'm reading here. Now, I am not too privy to the newest cars because I'm but 23 years on and most of my friends are of a similar age, so we buy used, but I've been in A5s and S5s and A8s and S8s and A4s and S4s, and 6s as well, and I can't say I've seen any without power seat adjustment, and fine interior materials. Maybe we aren't nearly as shorted as we'd believe.

Another thing I noticed on my mates "new" A5 which may help explain that is the lack of proper door seals.

The good old "8" has both inner and outer seals on the doors, not sure what other Audi models have as I've never studied it. (My basic Ford Focus obviously doesn't).
I presume it not only keeps the sills etc. clean (you wouldn't want your best frock smeared in motorway grime arriving at the opera would you?) but keeps the noise levels down.

But I was rather surprised to see the S-line A5 was just the same as any basic car with only inner seals - and grubby sills. :o