2008 Audi A6 2.0 TDi (140) S-Line (P)

2008 Audi A6 2.0 TDi (140) S-Line (P)

Long story short: Fly to Lisbon, drive to the Algarve, had booked a Golf diesel, not many cars at the airport, got an Audi. Very pleased. The end!Or is it? Anyone planning to do over 750 miles during a 9 day holiday would surely be very pleased to get an upgrade several classes higher. I was, however, planning on parking in a very tight underground carpark for some of the time and staying in quite a small fishing village for the rest. In the meantime visiting several small villages in which negotiating a big car wasn’t going to be too easy. None of this is the car’s fault though. But the car itself did have its faults.

But what were its good points? Space. Loads of it. For a start the boot was simply massive. It swallowed two suitcases, hand luggage and other bits and pieces with total ease and room to spare.

The front seats were big and comfortable. I could have done with a touch more lumber support, there was no adjustment in this car, but I never once thought that I was uncomfortable. They didn’t have much lateral support however. More on that later. The rear also had more than ample space: knee, head and shoulder room was superb, though maybe an inch or so more foot room would have been useful.
Staying with the interior, the equipment level on this particular car was a little, well, mixed. There was leather, cruise, climate, steering wheel controls and Audi’s MultiMedia Interface (MMI). I found it unbelievable that the car could have a dedicated button marked ‘Nav’, and yet didn’t have satellite navigation! Why would they do that? Just to remind you that you didn’t spec your car right? The button did nothing. Bizarre.
There was no bluetooth connection and if you didn’t have exactly the right phone in which to place into the slot in the front central armrest the two large buttons on the steering wheel were useless too. Most strange. And the CD player was just a single one too. So an oddly spec’d interior indeed.
I also found the steering wheel to be a touch too thin too, but that is a matter of taste.
The ergonomics were excellent though. The wheel, pedals, seat relationship was very good indeed. I had no problem in getting an ideal driving postion that meant I could relax in the car hoping that it would waft me from beach to beach.
All the controls, the switches and the MMI all moved, clicked and flicked with beautiful precision.
And so to the outside. This was an S-Line version, but ran on 17″ alloys. There are nice looking wheels, but 18’s would look even better. You would think that at least the car would ride well on smaller wheels, but this car never seemed to settle. On very smooth tarmac this car would be an excellent cruiser, but those pieces of road are few and far between sadly. The car would either jiggle or bounce or roll, sometimes all at once! It never felt tied down. There was no trade off with road holding either. On the twisties of the mountain roads, the car would heave and lurch which lead to a massive lack of confidence, and its light and uncommunicative steering did nothing to help. Yes it’s a large saloon, but I really thought that it would have done either ride or handling, but to do neither well was surprising.
As long as you didn’t mind stirring the, admittedly slick, gearbox (a lot!) then the car moved along well. Initially feeling a little lethargic, but the torque then took over and hauled the car along nicely. Sixth was quite long and if you were sticking to the speed limits on a motorway then a hill would require a change down to fifth, which is disappointing. The cruise control would allow the speed to be maintained, but would lead to some raucous noises from under the bonnet.
Whilst in the twisties, an awful lot of flicking between second, third and fourth was needed. This wouldn’t be a problem if is wasn’t for the limitations of the suspension and the seats that would leave you and your passenger hanging on so that you didn’t slip and slide on the leather as the car heaved and rolled.

In conclusion, a mixed bag. I thought that it is a great looking car, it felt really good just getting in to it an it had a real feel good factor. But this particular car had limitations. The suspension and the steering just didn’t work on virtually any surface and to me it’s a very spec sensitive sector of the market, where this A6 just didn’t fit.
I have to say that I really enjoyed the prestige of driving it amongst all the Clios, i20’s, 207’s and at best an Astra. There were quite a lot of confused looks as to why and how I came to be driving this, But I couldn’t use it everyday unless it was either sharper or more comfortable (or both obviously) and all the buttons actually had a use. 2009-10-22 16:13:50

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