I'm not talking about driving on a track or anything, I am talking about getting the basics right.
If I take my old S4 avant as an example, and many may want to just switch off here as it is probably a bit boring, but here goes.
I owned a couple of Audis and then bought a BMW, however I was an Audi owner, I was involved on all the forums and missed the Audi ownership, so I went and bought another Audi after 12 months with the BMW.
However, the first one I couldn't get on with, did nothing particularly wrong, just didn't excite. So after 6 months I upgraded, again, missing something, so upgraded.....and upgraded....and upgraded......and then.....realised that it was the fact that these were all Audis and compared to the BMW they were dull.
So I went from a 3.0i A4 to another 320d sport touring and once again I had a car that I really enjoyed driving everyday, and a car that made me smile sitting at the speed limits, you didn't have to be driving like you're on a track to enjoy it and appreciate the balance and handling, the way it held a line on the road and just went where you pointed it was something none of the Audis could do.
So after a around 5 years with BMWs I decided I wanted to get rid of my 535d sport touring and the M3 CSL and get something that would do both jobs, neither as well as either, but something I could enjoy everyday.
I bought a 2005 S4 avant at 18 months old.
Looked nice....
Interior was nice.....
And to be honest that is where the good points ended.
I met the seller at Newbury and drove back to Norwich, and even before I had got home and I was in Friday afternoon motorway crawl traffic, I realised I had made a massive mistake, the new car excitement turned to that feeling you get in your stomach when you know you have made a big mistake.
Firstly, the pedals in Audis are offset, but this is not an issue at all, BMWs are too as are many marques, the real issue is the pedal height, or heights.
They are all different!!!
The gas pedal is higher than the brake, the clutch is higher than the gas.
And to make it worse the gas pedal is the old style and not hinged from the floor so you have to have your foot so your toes are nearly touching your shins!
My seating position was completely wrong.
If you sit now and and try and touch your chins with you toes you will get an idea, after a while you get cramp. On a few occasions I had to pull over and get out and walk it off.
Obviously an Auto makes this less of an issue as you only have to try and get a compromise between gas and brake, not the clutch as well.
Clarkson mentioned this and said that if it hadn't have been for the stupid pedal heights he would have bought an S4 cab.
The clutch is off to the right slightly on RHD cars, which in itself is fine, but then the foot rest is also right next to it as the transmission tunnel is also over to the right, so your foot gets caught on the footrest when you press the clutch, to get round this you have to twist from your knee to your foot left to miss the footrest and at the same twist from your hip to your knee right to as the pedals are offset.
All very strange and something you do get used to, but just a complete lack of thought when changing the cars to RHD.
When people said 'The problem with Audis is they stick their engines over the front axle!' I thought they were joking, not so!!!
The S4 have a big 4.2 V8 engine and it was in front of the front axle!!!!
You had to fight it around every corner, the understeer was so bad you could never take advantage of the Quattro, you had to slow up well before the AWD had any benefit.
I tried to remedy this will thicker rear anti roll bars etc. and that did help a little, but after being in BMWs it was atrocious!
Gearing - This was the main reason I got rid of the car.
The gearing was really short on the S4, well in manual guise anyway.
I later found out it was to make sure the 0-60 times were kept under 6 seconds, however it ruined the car. 1st to 2nd was a joke, and made any sort of town or traffic work a complete nightmare.
You were just constantly swapping cogs.
Also, this was a big 4 litre V8, the engine could have got to 100mph with 2 gears.
But the final drive on the manual meant that at 8-mph it was doing 4000rpm, compared with 2500rpm on the auto.
So sit at 80mph all day and you see 18mpg in the manual and around 26mpg in the auto.
I could get better consumtion round town than on the motorway, and believe me this was a motorway mile muncher and nothing more than that.
Now, the A6 had all the above faults regarding handling etc. but it was a different car and you didn't expect anything from it, so you just accepted, it was no better in any area apart from the fact it was an auto, but I lived with it.
I modified the gas pedal so it sat only 2" lower than the brake instead of 3.2" and that helped and I bought some sport seats for mine as the SE seats were just horrific, and then it was a pretty nice car.
It looked great imho, the interior was nice if a little hollow feeling, but I think that was more the bus like steering wheel Audi seem to love than anything else, and the 3.2 petrol did between 24 and 32mpg.
However, jump from the A6 into the E Class and you then appreciate all the things you take for granted on a Merc, and these things are things that should be taken for granted, just that not all marques bother as much as Mercedes do about the basics.
so, sorry for the ramble but I am talking from my experience with them and not listening to the press, but to be fair now I have been back to Audi and come away again I do thing the press hit the nail on the head when it comes to Audi most of the time.
To me Audi owners buy the car because of the badge*, BMW owners tend to buy the car despite the badge and Merc owners tend to keep buying Mercs because they know they are just very, very good cars.
*I include myself in that btw, I bought the A6 avant as it is a nothing car, it doesn't offend anyone and you can turn up anywhere in it and it doesn't really say anything.
