AUDI A4 - and the mystery key !!

I was visiting my relatives, who have an Audi TT. So my brother in law wanted to have a look at the Audi - he sat in side, played with the controls etc.

He then declared he could start the car without my key. Well I knew this wasn't possible, since I had the key and there is no other fancy option to start this car.

He then started the car, much to my amazement!

How? Well apparently there is a back up key in the glove box. Nobody had told me about this backup key. It is a plastic key which fits into a spare plastic key body. The key body fits into the socket like the normal key - but doesn't have any electronic functionality. However once the other piece of plastic is inserted..it appears to work like any other key.

So I have been driving around with the spare sitting in the unlocked glovebox the whole time. How unsafe is that. I wonder how many other Audi drivers are now in the same situation. Does the insurance cover this?

Steering noise..

noises.. you want your car to make all of the right noises.. and none of the strange ones.. well a few strange ones have started in the audi a4

Perhaps only happened 3 times... but when parking and turning the steering wheel sharply, you get this horrible noise.. almost like a poor type of horn being hit.. what is that..

also another irritating noise.. it's as if there is some static on the radio..

Audi Economics - Fuel and Tax

From the maths I did before getting the Audi A4, I knew it would be a significant saving over running the XC70 from Volvo. However with all of these good ideas, you never really know if the theory will work in practise.

One big saving area was in fuel consumption. Now with the diesel price dropping, the saving is less.. but is it significant, now after 1000miles - how is it working out. The car is saying it is making 44mpg on average since new.. now I don't know how the average works though.

One thing that used to frustrate me with the Volvo was that despite the big 70litre tank, you always felt you were filling the car up. My weekly business mileage was 4 round trips of 36miles and then one trip of around 240.. now in reality this seemed to use up the tank !! despite the average being about 35mpg. With the Audi, I can make 7 round trips of 36 miles plus the 240 trip.. on less than 60 litres. The fact I don't have to visit the petrol station every week.. is already a telling the story of saving money.. I always seemed to be at the station before.. with some bills at £85+.. I just filled up at Sainsbury using a voucher and got 58litres for under £60. So approx £30-40 saving per week less versus 6 months ago.

I am waiting for the end of the month to see if the tax saving will be identified. However tax saving I expect to be around £400 per month. So compared to this time 6 months, the total saving of tax and fuel must be well over £500 per month. There is no way the Volvo was worth £500 per month more than this Audi A4.