European impressions (long, some Audi)

[ed armstrong]

Hi ya'll,

I'm back from a recent European tour and vacation and
have a few things of interest that I wanted share with
the quattro community.

First of all, this comes from the perspective of an
American who was last in Europe 15 years ago so I was
curious what kind of changes I would see after this
time. My travels lead me to southern France and
Germany and northern Spain so I had a good sample of
whats out on the road in Europe these days...

My first impression what that there is a tremendous
number of diesel passenger cars on the road over
there. I would guess that among the "newer" cars of 5
years or younger more than 50% are of the diesel
variety. When you consider the fuel and driving costs
it easy to see why. Diesel is approx 20% cheaper than
gas and the diesel motor gets about 20% better fuel
economy than a similar gas motor. Easy math to do.

With regard to the diesel, there's the good, the bad
and the ugly. The good are the newer diesels, like the
VW TDI (more on that later). They do not smoke or
smell appreciably and they make decent power. The bad
and the ugly are the older stuff. The stench from
these older cars is pretty bad as I find diesel fumes
obnoxious. But once these are gone in a few years
things will be OK.

The car I ended up renting actually came with a VW
TDI. It was a Seat Leon, which I believe is built on a
Golf platform. A very nice car with a high quality
interior (I liked the carbon fiber lookalike dash) and
general overall build. The TDI motor was great, good
power and fuel economy. This was the first time
driving a diesel in a while, so it was refreshing to
see one that had decent acceleration. However, despite
the press I've read on this engine, you know its a
diesel even at speed. There is a low-end tap-tap-tap
one hears all the time. Not uncomfortable, but its
there. Maybe this engine is quieter in VW models.
Motor sure soundz a lot better with the turbo whine,
but a real performer its not. It might be, in a
smaller lighter car, like the VW Polo or Lupo (gosh
they have some really small cars over there !). All in
all, the Seat Leon is not a bad car and I wouldn't
mind having one over here as a family car only.

Driving in europe, once one is out of the heavily
congested cities, is a real treat. On the autoroutes
and autobahns, the driving is very fast and
disciplined. The average speeds are in the 120-160
km/hr range with most people going 130-150 km/hr.
Thats about 81-93 mph for you USA folks! And I'm not
talking about a short burst to this speed (and
checking for cops along the way as one would do here)
but hours and hours at this tempo. Of course, the
european freeways are generally in _much_ better
condition than their US counterparts, even when
comparing US to Spainish freeways.  Also the distance
between entrance and exit ramps is much longer and the
overall level of traffic is somewhat less. At least in
France and Spain the autoroutes were sometimes
empty...I think because you have to pay toll there. In
Germany, autobahn driving is free and there was more
traffic.  Germany was the way I remembered it: one
could really go flat out on the autobahn as fast as
one wished if traffic permitted. Sometimes I was
passed in a blur when I was chugging around 150-160
kph.  But the speeds felt very safe and I never felt I
was putting my family at risk. The only wreak I saw
was a large truck that had overturned in France (it
was really a bad wreak).

Most of this high speed safety is a direct result of
the european driving style: only pass on the left,
then move over to the right if faster traffic is
behind. We could learn a thing or two from them.

Now something about Audis. Audi seems to very popular
in the areas of Europe I visited. The most popular
models are A3 and A4, with some A6 and A8 mixed in for
the well-heeled crowd. Overall I would say Audi is the
second most popular German make (after VW) even more
than BMW and Mercedes. However, as with all european
models they come with small engines (want to try a 1.9
TDI in a A4 ?). But I think most europeans are not too
interested in strong acceleration, they just want to
eventually get to a high top speed while saving gas!

More stuff on Audis: I was really surprised not to see
hardly any Audi quattros, even in Germany. Only one
confirmed sighting of an A8 quattro. When I asked my
cousin about this he told be that the quattro option
was about 5000 euros vs about 1500 euros here in the
states. For us, its a no brainer. For them, quattro
costs some serious euros. Also more disheartening was
that I did not see any I-5 turbos. Not one Type 44
turbo. It was easy to see that the 1980s are a
forgotten era in Europe. I don't believe many people
even know or remember this wonderful engine over
there. Thats a shame because I always thought of the
I-5 turbo as the european version of an american V-8.
Not it the sense of raw power, but it the sense of its
tuneability, reliability, strength, wonderful exhaust
note and reasonable level of fuel economy etc. But
Audi/VW have given up on this engine unless you want
to consider the 2.5 l TDI. So its up to us on this
list to keep the spirit of this great engine alive !!

Some other tidbits:

 - Most popular "americun" car by far was the Jeep
Cheerokee followed by the PT Cruiser.
 - Best looking car in my opinion was the Alfa Romeo
156 avant (or whatever they call their station wagon
model). It was a four door that looked like a two door
with the rear door handles hidden in the B pillar.
Very beautiful! Comes with a 2.0 liter twin spark
engine or 1.9 turbo diesel.
 - Some other weird cars that are hard to
describe...you'll just have to go there !

Well that wraps up the longest post in a while!
Comments welcome.


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-ed

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