Nice Ride

If you don’t like cars or aren’t interested on reading about it, just skip this post. You won’t loose anything as I’m just pointing my first impressions of my new car.

Well, as you must already know, my company has treated me an Audi A3 2.0 FSI Sport complete of many options, like cruise control, heated front and back seats, leather interior, xenon bulbs with automatic light control, rear parking distance control, good looking alloy wheels and other goodies. The colour is also great: Metallic graphite.

Well, I drove something like 60 miles today and was able to take some first impressions of the car. I haven’t been able to test it under certain conditions, but will do it as soon as I can.

Just to start, when you enter the car you feel like you’re entering an Audi. Mainly due to the leather it looks pretty classy. You sit in the drivers sit and you can easily find the perfect driving position. It has god all four regulations (including lumbar support) in the front seats, so, it’s an easy job. The steering column also is adjustable, so, you can move that to the best position.

The controls are mainly positioned in the central console in the dashboard and they are clearly divided for controlling the CD player, tape deck, radio, air conditioning (independently controlled by both driver and passenger) and all other normal controls.

Once you’re in the right position, you can just turn the key to turn on the engine. The first thing you notice is that the engine is very silent. After that you will see all the warnings and tests in the onboard computer. The onboard computer is very useful and can give you lots of information.

When you put first gear and start accelerating the car, you better do it calmly because it got a 2.0 FSI engine that bumps up 150bhp. It is quite a lot of power. Just to top the engine, it has got also a six gear manual gearbox that is tuned for sport driving. You can precisely change gears, the clutch is smooth and easy to operate. The car is very responsive and pleasant to drive. You will probably never find yourself in a situation like trying to overtake someone and having to go down almost to third gear to be able to do so. Even in fourth of fifth gear the car is pretty responsive. The only gear where you have almost no acceleration is the sixth, but there you have a good medium rev.

In the bends the car behaves very well. The electronic assisted steering is very well balanced on both high and low speeds and give you the responses you want. The car, even being front wheel driven, presents little under steer and is just nice to do bends with it. It has god also ABS + ESP, which improves a lot in the handling of the car.

Brakes works as you would expect in a 150bhp car. They can respond very well to any situation.

The sound system, which is a BOSE powered HI-FI sounds good and can complete the nice trip with my wife harmoniously or can melt down my brains when I’m alone listening to my hardcore music. Very powerful sound.

The last aspect of that car, and for me it’s not the least, is that it looks great. But not ordinarily great: It looks amazingly great. You can park it everywhere. I mean, everywhere. You will look at your car and you will say: This car looks f***ng great. Even if by your side you’ve got that wonderful Porsche or Ferrari, your car will still look great.

Also, when inside it you’ve got the feeling that you’re in a first class car. When you touch the steering wheel you know that it is a luxury car.

After 60 miles driving, I can say one thing about that car: Anyone that thinks that such a car is too expensive should be able to spend a day with one of these. The car is fantastic. It drives great, it feels great, it looks great and you feel great inside it. The materials and finishing you’re going to find there you won’t find in a Ford or even a VW and only when you get to use one you will understand why Audi is so successful selling so expensive cars.