I just spent five days driving an almost brand new Audi A4 1.8T Multitronic slaoon hire car around Sydney. The car left me thoroughly unimpressed, and wanting to try another A4 just to make sure I didn't have a duffer.

Over five days I drove several hundred kilometers in varying conditions - countryside freeways, local backroads and city driving.

The things that stick in the mind most are:

1. Multitronic gearbox is an absolute shocker. It was positively the worst gearbox of any sort I have ever used. I know it is a CVT with pretend 'ratios', but the response was so sluggish that leaving the lights you needed to bury your foot to make any kind of progress that can be described as lukewarm, and if you did that, you'd end up with a screaming engine note. The steering wheel had paddles to make use of the seven pretend 'ratios', but you honestly didn't feel inclined to use them at all.

2. The brakes were incredibly sensitive and unmodulated, almost binary in their operation. You only had to breathe on them to execute an emergency stop. I know that Audis are lambasted for their immensely powerful yet feel-free brakes, but this really was something else. Everytime we came to a stop there was a better than even chance that the occupants would be thrown forward. Whilst I'm no Senna, I have also been driving long enough, and with enough skill, to be able to make a smooth stop. It was almost always impossible in this car.

3. The CVT gearbox had a tendency to pick up speed incredibly quickly at idle when in gear. No other automatic or CVT car I've ever driven has had this much urge at idle speeds. What this meant was that at traffic lights and in stop start traffic, the effect of the extremely rapid creep forward and the over-sensitive brakes meant that jerky progress was the norm. My missus (who has sat in all sorts of cars driven by me over the years) said this was the first time she's ever felt sick travelling in a car driven by me.

4. Awful positioning of the handbrake and armrest. The handbrake is directly underneath the driver's arm rest. Of course you could raise the arm rest to access the handbrake.... but surely they could have thought of a better execution than that.

5. Choppy ride over broken surfaces. On the freeways it was fine, body movements held in check and good grip. Over long period undulations there was very little float, and cornering was secure and, dare I say, fun as turn-in was eager and accurate. However, there was little feel and feedback to be hand, and in town, over speed bumps whilst the initial compression of the 'hit' was well softened, the damping was too firm.

6. Awesome interior integrity. The choice of materials was spot on, and it felt very very solid, if a little dark and depressing. The car we had came with aluminium inserts, and if it didn't have those, it would have been a very dreary place to be. The Audi centre console architecture has been around for a while now - perhaps it's time for a refresh in the A4.

7. Standard leather seats were very supportive and with a good range of adjustment, esp in the seat base. I'm 6"2' and I found a comfortable position almost immediately.

Overall, I was very disappointed with what sounded like the perfect car to drive around town. The combination of strong idling torque matched with over-sensitive brakes makes this combination definitely one to avoid for stop-start city driving.

 

May be an irelevant comment but I have 3 neighbours who have all returned Audi company cars early in the last couple of months. It takes a lot for a company to reject a lease car so there must be something fundamental adrift.

Either the dealers (Gatwick Audi apparently has an atrocious reputation) are poor or the cars are not reliable.

Surprised me but apparently its quite common.

 

One of our guys has just rejected his after 9 months as well.
Same car 1.9 TDi but a manual he had problems with the engine which were escalated to Audi GMBH to no avail. He is waiting for his replacement, a Volvo S80 2.5Td SE :yawn:

 

To be fair, the modern Volvos are probably as underrated as Audis are overrated. Except the XC90, whose completely over-whelmed engine & tranny are suddenly only fit for a London Taxi.

Funny how the Jazz CVT gets the 'creep' function almost right - it won't hill-hold on my drive, though! The seven fake gears are because most people are too ignorant to appreciate the stepless thing!