Test drive Audi A4 B6 2001 - 2004 sedan

Great pretender

What is the advantage of the machine gun over traditional mechanics, I think, it is not necessary to explain. A completely embroidered humanity is constantly looking for all new ways to shove its work on obedient glands. And after all, he finds it! But the pleasure does not last long, and now the euphoria is replaced by numerous claims: then, you see, the fuel consumption is great, then the dynamics of acceleration seems to be sluggish. What do we do? And again there is a search for optimum.

  

In the struggle against the governing bodies, Audi engineers showed the world a very interesting design of an automatic unfinished transmission, called the cuneiform variator. The keyword of the chain: the role of the CVT belt more familiar to transmission here is played by a flat multi -member production chain of LUK. What does it give? First of all, the chain allows you to transfer a larger torque to the drive wheels compared to traditional cuneiform variators. And theoretically, the chain should be more reliable, however, and the belts are now such that, most likely, they will survive the car itself. By the way, multi -stones are equipped with a drive only to the front axle, for example, this Audi A4 with a two -liter atmospheric engine.
 
Will we ride? Control of the variator is no different from the usual machine gun: the same selector, and the provisions on it are the same. Let there be drive! Life begins to emerge under the hood: while the box smoothly changes the gear ratio, the engine is equally spinning smoothly, due to which the process of setting speed seems phlegmatic. How should it? Traditional CVT transmissions act less exquisitely: when accelerating, the motor goes to cruising turns and works on one note, and the variator smoothly changes the gear ratio. So the multitronic in this case looks more preferable: the engine makes a completely natural sound when setting speed.
 
Multitronics is endowed with the mind of remarkable power with adaptive logic, so that the box adapts to the style of riding a particular individual. If you do not rush anywhere, then the engine quietly rustles in the low-speed zone, and the set of speed occurs gently and smoothly. But it is only worth a few times to accelerate the floor, as the variator regards this as a call to action and lets the tachometer arrow into the maximum thrust zone and then the car seems to wake up. A-fourth from a cat turns into a lynx: the softness of the habits does not go anywhere, but it is felt that the tone here is a completely different car gaining move with much greater enthusiasm.

  

So, now we order the variator to turn into a five -speed mechanics. This exercise Multitronic performs on a solid five, instantly obeying the teams that come from the same selector. By the way, in comparison with the mechanical box, the Audi variator has better fuel efficiency and dynamic characteristics at least according to official figures. But for this you will have to return to the automatic mode again. Is the optimum found?
 
It looks like that. But technologically saturated Multitronic is by no means the cheapest possible transmission. However, such an image brand as Audi can and should make perfect decisions.
 

The car is provided by RUSE-AUTO.
During the test, the car is insured by LLC Nation Center.
 
Text: Kirill Brevdo
Photo: Roman Ostanin
 
 
 
 
 

Source: Wheel magazine [July 2003]