Long Term Audi RS4 B9 Review *Sonoma Green

[Music] [Music] hey guys welcome to my long-term odrs for review I actually did an initial review of this car when it came out in the UK only this year so check out the description below you'll find a link there to the review it was really good I was happy with the way that turned out and I actually said in that review that the v9 rs4 is probably one of the best cars on sale today in the UK as a complete package my mind has not changed at all having this car for 10 days it's just been brilliant I really wanted to get to know the car it's all very well going to these amazing press launches and you know being given the keys for 3-4 hours sometimes a whole day but there's only so much you can learn in that time and if it's a great car like this you do get a bit excited and carried away and you don't delve too much into the rest of the actual car so I wanted to live with one of these for 10 days which I have done and and understand more about the car itself now the rs4 has always been a car that I've wanted to own you know it's it's a it's right out there and it's up there and a lot of people sort of dream car garage I think if you could have three five cars in a dream gallery you'd probably have an rs4 or an rs6 I know I am the BMW man but let's face it what to BMW make that's really fast and you know in a state or a touring as they would call it they don't and how pinna do the B 3s touring but I've not really been fortunate enough to drive that and they're so rare the rs4 this new one when it first came out I was disappointed that I'd heard it was coming with you know v6 and that amazing v8 it disappeared but 200 meters down the road you soon realized why they've gone - why they've gone - forced induction because it's an absolute beast when you put your foot down in any gear it just absolutely takes off it really does and although on paper the power figures look very similar to the old v8 this car is in a completely different league in terms of performance a lot of that's got to do with the amazing talk and just it just picks up wherever you want it to pick up it just goes it just like fought on the floor and it goes [Music] it's got the ZF 8-speed gearbox as well which is to me one of the best all-round automatic gearboxes on the market you know that it shifts up and shifts down when you want it to it does a very good job of being an automatic but it also does a very good job at sort of responding to what you've asked the paddles to do or you ask it to do so it really is fantastic I think it's it's a brilliant gearbox made to a very very engaging and efficient engine I mean this thing just goes efficient in two ways efficient in the way that it delivers the power on the talk but also efficient in the traditional sense that on a long run the other day I have which nearly 39 miles to the gallon and yeah most of it was eight roads and motorways stuff but you would never have dreamt of getting anywhere over 30 in the old VA you know it mid 20s if you're very lucky but so you're talking you know it's it's almost twice as efficient as the old engine and when you look at it like that with fuel prices getting higher and you know just the time you save at going to go into the pump the loan is it's worth it now this car does it does a number of things well it's it's very good at being you put it you know you've change the driving mode into comfort to put it into automatic the engine gets quieter the valves on the exhaust close the ride and it's very good it's better on the 19's and it is on these 20s that's for sure and I think even hand was better than the 19's that I think just that extra tire cushioning to me feels like the cars a bit more pliant to the corners but maybe I'm mad on a track I'm sure on a circuit on a smooth circuit the 20s are going to gonna give you a better contact patch but they just they're not as forgiving so the rise up quite is good with the 20s but obviously it looks amazing let's when he's talking these weddings let's just talk through the specs quickly now the rs4 comes in two specs we start adding options you got the regular rs4 and then you've got the rs4 carbon edition which this one is the regular rs4 in the UK is about sixty one and a half thousand pounds on the road the carbon edition is about ten thousand pounds more than that just watch out this Audi driver pulling out me so yeah the carbon edition is about 10,000 pounds more than a regular edition what do you get for that extra 10 grand well you get a lot of carbon you get carbon and trim on the outside you get carbon splitter and you get carbon side skirts and carbon wing mirror covers and carbon inside the car I don't know is it too much carbon no but I kind of like the standard car and when you look at 10,000 pounds yeah it saves a little bit of weight but we're not talking much you also get the 20 inch milled wheels which are on this car which are 2 kilos lighter per corner and that's unsprung weight so you know they are I guess that's where a lot of that money's going but 10,000 pounds to me I would go normal rs4 and spend spend that 10 grand on options on options like a panoramic roof which i think is a must-have in an estate or an SUV because it just opens the cabin up so much the press car but I had I had two of them actually on that day and one of them had a roof and it just opened the interior up it was so nice big panoramic roof it's just a bit dark in here it's very spacious but it doesn't feel it because it's dark and I think if you're getting this as a family the ultimate family wagon I don't know what a panoramic roof is but I'm guessing it's around 2 grand tick that box because that makes a huge difference this cars also got things like the the all the safety avoidance things I forget what they call it on the option pack but they just annoy me most of the time the guided Cruiser stuff and the Audi's are pretty good but again they're not you know I'll rather just not have any of that stuff but that's that's who I mean and I think also it's kind of country dependent you know if you live in France or on the continent where the motorways can be free and empty in this lines on the road then it all works but when you're in the UK sitting on a traffic jam on the m25 or somewhere else they don't always work so I'll stay light on those sorts of options the rest of the options well this has got the regular breaks you can get carbon ceramic - about 6,000 pounds but these feel fantastic they really do in terms of practicality it's really good I mean we know it's got a massive boot because it's in a state but I've really put this car to the test you know I've recently I or last week I took a complete set of spare wheels to my m14 t-cell 18s with like big tires on them and another set of tires so four wheels with tires and tires I took them to a tyre fitting shop to get them all swapped over they were went in the back with the seats down no problem whatsoever in fact today Patrick becoming Patrick who's helping me film this again fantastic Thank You Patrick he we and took this car with four tires phase out from o4c so we're talking two 19's and two 18s because they're staggered and we've through those four tires in the boots with with the seat setup they all fit in the boot no problem so it's got a really big boot it's really really practical in that sense and another occasion my parents and my brother and his girlfriend flew back from Italy where they've been for a few weeks I picked them up from Heathrow a couple of days ago so we're talking for extra adults and all their luggage in this car no problem like easy just it just swallowed it up came back in comfort they all blown away by how fast it well so it was still really fast with all that weight in there you know and that just shows you that's the talk the old rs4 again with the v8 you load that out the people luggage and it doesn't feel anywhere near as fast it does when it's empty because it doesn't have that talk that this cars got something else that we must talk about that this cars got and it's unavoidable and it's definitely been the talking point it's the color it's Sonoma green that's what LD call it and I actually until about an hour ago when I asked for the spec sheet for the second time from Audi because I couldn't believe it it's a standard collar I've been telling people for the last ten days that it's like a paint to sample color or an individual color or whatever Audi called it I was thinking it was gonna be a four or five grand color because it is so nice and I initially liked it a bit and it's grown and grown and grown on me everyone in my village has come out to talk to me about the color people I've never talked to before I've come over and talked to me about the car and the colour and everyone that sees the car smiles gives me a thumbs up and yes it's an rs4 but it's it's honestly the response I'm getting is is to do with the actual colour of the car so many people have you know it's unusual it's lovely and it just goes so well with with the body shape and the wheels and the black leather just it really is a striking-looking car and this it's one of those sort of metallic paints that in certain lights it looks quite flat and mossy and other lights it looks very metallic and you see all the sort of sparkle and it's just it's a real it's a real special colour really is and it's a regular standard colour it's a no-cost option color so I dare any of you that would look it buying nice for be bold and get one of these because yes I know the rs4 is great in black and grey and blue whatever and a regular sort of colours but this is special and it really does add a lot to the car as I say I thought was a foreground color and I was thinking if I was buying one of these I'd put for grants aside just for the color option but now it's a free color so amazing really really good to hear let's just talk quickly about the interior now the interior and these things they're brilliant it's an Audi interior well I think this is our Lee's interior at its very best they've gone too far the new a7 a8 q8 the new a6 in fact with this new sort of twin slab and it's like a a black sort of interior with just a black screen touchscreen stuff looks the business looks the absolute business but in reality it's a bit tricky and difficult to use and it doesn't it doesn't work as efficiently and as well as its listened to and I can imagine the new a4 will be you know when that comes out in a few years time we've still got three four years away but that's going to have the two slabs of touchscreen etc and I think that it doesn't need it I think this is this is the pinnacle this is this is Audi at its absolute best really really nice you know I love it in here and the head-up display the head-up display that wasn't too keen on before I then realized you've actually got two settings in this car so you can change the head-up display and in the racier setting where it's got like at lap time and stuff that is brilliant so I do like the head-up display in this you got head-up display virtual cockpit and a really nice an out of here so maybe that's overkill but whatever but the heating controls and stuff I like the way it's still just dials mechanical and heated seats of buttons you can find everything within like two days of having this car I know where everything is and it's easy and I don't have to look down to change things whereas when the new cars you really do I can imagine even living with them you still have to look down and then you've got the grubby fingerprints all over it so interior game really strong negatives of the interior well again I talked about this in my initial review and I'm not going to change my mind and it's it's the same that I have the same issue about having any force Audi is the Super Sport seats there too what are you too small if I sit upright I'm not getting supported around my shoulders because I'm basically sitting well above the the support the shoulder support my head's well above the backrest they're just too small the base is brilliant the base is really good and really long and fits me perfectly but the backs of the seats I just don't understand why they're so small so if you're over 510 511 they start to sort of feel too small and in fact Patrick who's six-foot even he his head's a bit too high for the headrest I just don't get why they have to make them so small they could have made them another two inches higher in the back and there'd be a perfect seat because to look at and the quality of them is spot-on but they are just a bit too small other things to point out around the cabin there's a few because it's such a beautiful cabin there's a few not-so-great plastics that don't really work and one of them is actually the surround on the head-up display and it's kind of I don't know if I'd go for a head-up display on one of these I think they're about twelve hundred pound option because of the surround that you get and I remember this in an earlier or a six I've driven it's a really sort of cheap plastic surround that doesn't fit into the - very well that it looks terrible it looks like body panels on a Tesla and you get on a day like today with a bright Sun you get reflections of the actual surround at the head-up display so get a head-up display then you get a big reflection around it the plastic and then you get the normal I just it doesn't work for me really really doesn't work so there are a couple of not-so-great plastics hidden away in a cabin which is otherwise you know spot-on [Applause] I guess the last thing to do is put it into dynamic just as this person pulls away which is great dynamic so that opens exhaust valve into manual and will push on a bit I'll just talk you through how it feels I think this has got one of the best front ends on pretty much every car that's on sale today so you can really place the front and weight exactly where you want to and in a car on a big estate car like this it's just brilliant maybe the engine is the best thing I'm not sure it's got a lot of good things coming into a narrow section here it's just that much smaller and more nimble than say the rs6 it really is rs6 is quicker in a straight line makes a better sound for sure but if this thing's so nimble and so dartie when you want it to be it's brakes are great it's just brilliant you can really take liberties with it and as I discovered in the press launch it is slightly tail-happy I mean it's it's not very well Drive but it's very equal if not slightly rear bias and I'm sure then where you could really antagonize the backend to come around brilliant really really good any problem is it's so good that you're constantly catching traffic we'll have to spin back around again and do this section of road because it is absolutely fantastic and it sounds pretty good I'm sure the press car that had sounding a bit better the early fresco maybe you had a few more miles like this is only done 3,000 miles but the exhaust it's almost like the valve opens and closes depending on what sort of mood it's in because it doesn't necessarily sound loud and dynamic or comfort it just seems to switch between the two Safa sort of roads pretty shocking but it's just ticketing with it really is the front end just feels so good and so on RS it feels like it wants to find grip and get you out the corners quick as possible normally in an RS defense it's a little bit vague these things just brilliant it really it's it's the best RS product on sale today and I don't know why you're buying rs5 because to me I know they're basically the same car on the rs5 is slightly lighter so should feel much better but to me it doesn't it feels more wallowing in top-heavy this thing just feels brilliantly we have got this I love it it's really really good really good right well hopefully you enjoyed this second review of a long-term proposition of owning this car you know what it's like I think it's a brilliant car I really do and you know I'm very unbiased in my reviews and I know most of you think I am mr. BMW but you know I I said the rs4 was one of the best cars in sales today at the beginning of the year and I'm not going to take that back I think it's absolutely brilliant ironically it's it's a genuine rival to the fantastic equal he is good still vo Quadrifoglio Alfre mo that I had in Italy a couple weeks ago they both sort of do the same thing they're both you know reasonably well they're both large family cars effectively they've got two very different Jekyll and Hyde characters you know one does it in an Italian flurry when and the other one's more of a sort of German typically German way but the rs4 I honestly think it's what makes it such a good RS product or just good car . is RS cars have always been very fast and very comfortable but when i say very fast they've never been they've not always been very exciting they've just been fast this car is exciting as well as being fast and as well as being comfortable and stuff so it just feels it feels really good and it seems to do everything very well and you do forget that you're in such a big car you know you look back sometimes when you're pushing on maybe not when you're pushing on behalf so you've been pushing on right now and you go wow this is you know it's a big estate car and I've just been doing that and it that's madness and I think that's what makes makes this particular model very good but as I say get the base car there are a few options like a pan roof in here and and get it in the Sonoma green because well I personally think this is just a stunning color it really isn't and why not people are being bold with cars you know you buy a gt3 you get it in Miami blue or something ridiculous so they get one of these get it in Sonoma Green thanks for watching as always guys give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed this please make sure you subscribe because makes a big difference and leave any comments questions below and I'll see you at the next one [Music] the Audi rs4 oh look at the anything [Laughter]

Channel: Joe Achilles

Views: 85,484

Keywords: Audi, Audi RS4, Sonoma Green, Green Audi, 2018 Audi RS4, 2019 Audi RS4, Audi RS4 Avant, Audi RS4 Green, Audi RS4 Review, Audi RS4 Test, Joe Achilles, Audi RS4 Joe Achilles, Audi RS4 YouTube, Audi RS4 Video, Audi RS4 0-60, Audi RS4 Top Speed, YouTube, Car YouTube, Cars YouTube, 2019 Audi, 2019 Audi RS6, Audi RS4 vs Mercedes AMG C63S, Quattro, Ultimate Car, Best car 2018, Best car 2019, B9 RS4 Review, 2018 B9 RS4, 2019 B9 RS4, AUDI RS4 B9

Id: Y5oKK8zP1u4

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 08 2018