New Audi A4 Avant has arrived.

As expected, the Audi was delivered to my home.

Initial first impressions are good, certainly looks smart with it's meteor grey coat of paint. Also feels and looks a lot bigger than my previous A4 Avant.. though considerably smaller than the XC70. It is certainly a much prettier car than the Volvo. The front and nose clearly are inspired from the A5 and possibly the R8.

The car came with a half tank of fuel, and my first run out was to take the delivery driver to the station a few miles away. I was surprised that the average fuel consumption was 30mpg, since I was very gentle with the car.

The steering feels a lot heavier than the Volvo and Jaguar X type I am using at the moment. I guess this is just something to get used to. It reminds me more of the BMW I had in the past. The wheel is not as chunky as I thought it would be, in fact it is quite a large steering wheel. I suspect this is part of the dash layout. However coming to the dash, I have never realised how the speedo would be calibrated. Incredibly only the initial 1/3rd of the dash covers the legal speed limit in the UK.. the next 1/3rd covers the illegal speed that probably the car can reach.. and then the last 3rd represents both the illegal and unobtainable speed. I used to be impressed when a car said it could do 120mph when it's top speed was 105mph, but this is ridiculous. Also it's in increments of 20mph, so 30mph - a key speed figure for UK driving is hardly noticeable at 7pm on the speedo clock.

The bluetooth hooked up well, didn't need the manual for that. The delivery guy told me the code of 1234. However the iPod.. again Audi, the iPod. How can you continue to cock this up.

My previous A4 was bought with iPod as an optional extra system. However despite being able to directly plug the iPod into the cars music system, the functionality was next to useless - since no information could be displayed on the cars screen. This time, despite ordering the £200 RRP option of iPod interface - you need to go back to Audi and buy a connecting lead !!! How can it be the previous car connected, when I ordered the exactly same option with Volvo they manage to include a cable.. but Audi, well they just seem to enjoy pulling your pants down at the dealer. So trip back to the dealer (what was the point of having the car delivered) to buy the £30 lead. Yes £30 for a lead that costs at best £5?? At least I had the entertainment of listening to the service manage quote somebody for fixing a bumper that was scratched. He suggested a full respray would be needed, at a cost of...

wait for it...


£6000 !!

There was some quite colourful language from the customer at that point.


Not yet read the manual. Almost don't want to read it, to know about all of the options I didn't order with the car.