Re:A4

["Christopher E. Cieurzo" <ccieurzo@moose.uvm.edu>]

Greetings,
After having followed the A4 thread with interest over the last couple of 
days, and then seeing the stereo comments, I feel I have to respond (vent?).
I picked up my A4q in September, and have been happy with everything 
about it except the stereo (more on that later). The 2.8 is a good, not 
great engine, and I was debating holding off on purchasing until the 30v 
was available. Nahh, I'm sick of delayed gratification. I did comparison 
shop, and found that the A4 was a pretty good deal. The accord V6 was a 
dog, the Maxima has a great engine (and that's about it) and the 325 was 
about 4K more. Plus I got AWD, which is pretty important up here in VT. 
Also, despite the lower HP, the A4q std is supposedly as fast as the 325 
to 60 mph (manufacturer's specs). That pretty much sealed it for me. Yes, 
I would have loved more power, but it does its job quite well. I am able 
to get by the slow drivers around here without much fuss. 
My real complaint is with the stereo. Those hosers at Audi made it so it 
is damn near impossible to replace the stock stereo. The non Bose head 
unit is new this year, and is a big improvement over the old system. 
However, the CD player sucks. I cringed when I forked over $700 for a 
unit that performs like it was made by K-mart. It skips over everything, 
including expansion joints that are nearly flush with the road surface. 
The random play is only for the disc you are on-not for the whole 
magazine, and it is not programmable. I had a $320 Pioneer changer in my 
old car (which had much stiffer suspension) and it ran rings around this 
player. Audi went out of the way to make things difficult to 
upgrade-nonstandard dash opening and amps mounted on the speakers-require 
you to replace the entire system. What a rip off. Thanks for allowing me 
to blow off some steam.

Chris
96 A4q
92 CBR 600F2