SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.

We experience the 2011 Audi A8 4,2 FSi Quattro Tiptronic

Pics by audi@motorpics

Luxury's new benchmark

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday April 6, 2011

Back in the previous century, Rolls Royce bragged that the loudest sound in their cars at seventy-five miles per hour (120 km/h) was the ticking of the dashboard clock. Those upstarts over at VW-Audi-Bentley now tell us that the loudest sound in the A8 is the whirr of its slipstream - and that has been silenced significantly.

Audi engineers adopted numerous detailed solutions; a water-catching strip with a rounded leading edge, complex door seals with three sealing lines and an acoustically comfortable sunroof all work together to reduce wind noise. The sunroof’s wind deflector extends in two stages as a factor of driving speed to suppress whooshing noises and booming attributable to dynamic pressure. I can attest to this - it's the quietest sunroof at 120 km/h that I have experienced so far.

As one would expect of a car retailing at over a million Rand, the standard equipment chart reads like a what's what of must-haves, including but by no means limited to adaptive air suspension, Xenon Plus headlights with LED daytime running lights, LED tail lights, park distance control at front and rear, electric glass sunroof, power closing doors, electronic tailgate, electrically operated exterior mirrors with auto dimming function and a tyre pressure monitor.

Inside, one finds interactive navigation with hard disc, Bluetooth and voice control, a decent Bose sound system, a DVD changer, electric sunshade for rear window, four-zone Climatronic air conditioner, keyless entry, multifunction steering wheel with shift paddles, Isofix mounting on front passenger seat with airbag de-activation, leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats with memory function and 22-way adjustment, dynamic steering, Burr walnut inlays and electrically adjustable steering column. It even has a ventilated glove box.

Options include Night Vision Assist, speed limit display, frontal collision avoidance integrated into adaptive cruise control, rear vehicle approach warning integrated into Audi Side Assist, rear seat entertainment, full LED headlights, Audi Parking System Plus, sports differential, sports adaptive air suspension, dynamic steering, Bang & Olufsen advanced sound system, electronic solar sunroof, electric towing bracket and TV reception.

What's it like to live with? The 4,2 litre V8 develops 273 kW of power and 445 Nm of torque that move the beast up to 100 km/h in just over five-and-a-half seconds and on to a governed maximum of 250 km/h. There are bigger and stronger engines out there, but who needs all that muscle? Let's simply say that when you want to overtake or get out of the way of some moving hazard, it is done almost before you formulate the thought. Permanent all-wheel drive, along with the electronic road holding gadgets, mean you would need to drive like an idiot to succeed in throwing the car away. It sits firmly, the suspension is always compliant and you feel secure. It's not as intense a feeling as on some of the smaller Audi Quattros, but it’s always there. It's like the patriarch of the tribe; discipline is ever-present, but not as in-your-face as it might be with younger members.

Boot? Big, with two useful nooks for wedging those grocery bags that simply must not fall over. There are four lashing rings to secure loads and the sill is low. The spare is a full-sized alloy unit - nice in this day of expensive runflats and so-called "repair solutions" that have no place in a land of long, lonely distances and roving outlaws. Legroom and headspace in the rear is plentiful for taller passengers and entry and exit is suitably easy. There are three belts and three head restraints back there, but it's really designed for just two. The transmission tunnel gets in the way of any but an occasional small person. Separate rear vents and air conditioning controls contribute to Sir and Madam's comfort, while individual optional entertainment screens mean they don't even have to speak with each other.

A small oddness of the gearbox is that the shift lever does not move over to the left into a manual, or sport, plane as on most cars. A steering wheel button marked with two gear wheels and the letter 'M' takes care of that. Push it and select gears with the paddles. Using these without engaging 'manual' first, is a very short-term solution suitable only for negotiating one corner before everything defaults back to automatic again.

What do I take away from all this? There are many really nice saloon cars priced at over a million and most come from the mainstream manufacturers. Exotics like Maserati, Ferrari and Aston Martin are in the minority, so there is little 'wow' among the majority of contenders. There is only one A8 so far, so it has certain exclusivity, but at the end of the day it's just another Audi blending in with all its stable-mates. Pity.

The numbers
Price: R 1 105 905
Engine: 4 163 cc V8, petrol, naturally aspirated
Power: 273 kW at 6 800 rpm
Torque: 445 Nm at 3 500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,7 seconds
Maximum speed (governed): 250 km/h
Real life fuel consumption over 300 km: about 10,8 l/100 km
Tank: 90 litres
Maintenance plan: 5 years/100 000 km

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax. 

So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?

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