Audi A3... why dont they import to US? (wasRe: Wheel size of

[Ti Kan]

Brett Dikeman writes:
> >Same problem with getting the 6-speed manual with the V8 engines-
> >the potential sales are too low, so they decided against it. We'll
> >see if this changes with the introduction of the S4 4.2.
>
> Audi has repeatedly stated the reason the V8 was not coming with a 6
> speed was they didn't have a tranny that could take the torque.  It
> may have been a cop-out, but that's what they said.

It is a cop-out.  Euro S8s have had a 6-speed manual transmission
for many years now.  I think the real reason is that Audi has done
market research and found that most American buyers of high-end
executive class cars don't want to shift their own gears.  Having
a manual trans variant costs the company real money (training/documentation
service/support/parts inventory/crash tests etc, etc) and that cannot
be justified for a very low sales volume.

-Ti
2003 A4 1.8T multitronic
2001 S4 biturbo 6-sp
1984 5000S turbo
1980 4000 2.0 5-sp
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