Test drive Audi RS4 2000 - 2001 station wagon

Feast of obedience

Audi-RS4 position as, I quote, a car for 365 days a year
In two hours and a half hundred kilometers, in addition, cut off the time for photography. In addition, nasty rain, which always accompanies me at Audi presentations. And this is only half the troubles: I also got lost, and you can blame the navigation system as much as you like and an unexplored odometer. It is to blame, and you need to get out of the situation. I hope it will not be so difficult because in my hands the new Audi RS4. Well, help out, friend!

Alien among his own
It seems that here is one of the pink shooters hung by the organizers. They would know how long I have been looking for her! But he managed to get acquainted with this serious German, and I begins to like it. Behind a powerful, rather, even an impregnable appearance with advanced wheel arches, low-profile tires on 18-inch discs, rear spoiler and a pair of exhaust pipes, a rather obedient car with a flexible character is hidden.
Audi RS4 positions as, I quote, a car for 365 days a year. Here is one example: a long -flowing gas pedal allows you to obediently cowardly along the winding streets of Italian towns. Once again, you are amazed at what electronics is capable of who else can curb over four hundred stallions? Sorry, an important adjective accidentally fell out of the quote, not just a car, but a sports car
The settlements are over, you can sprinkle horses a little. Knowing that behind me an invisible shadow lined up a system of electronic systems, ready to quickly fix mistakes, still I will not give a herd to complete freedom. I can half the gas and immediately put my leg to the brake, resting on some slow fiat. Interestingly, RS4 does accelerate faster or slows down? In both cases, you feel that you hang over the road for a short while. Maybe the spirit does not have time behind the body? The dynamics eloquently declare the indicators of 100 km/h Audi RS4 reaches 4.8 s, and exchanges the second hundred after another 12 s.
... They specially laid the route along the winding mountain paths to demonstrate the possibilities of a new charged sedan. The steering is not so much acute as accurate, and at any speed allows you to clearly register turns. No, I won’t go faster. Suddenly, some kind of Iveo lurked behind the mountain?

In the native element
The second part of the presentation of the Pirelli training ground, where we have to try the Audi RS4 on the test route. Separate areas are abundantly watered with irrigation installations, others have already dried up a little after the rain. In one of the turns, I entered faster than necessary. But for a long time, the ESP 8.0 stabilization system did not have to fight with a skid. I worked out clearly and, most importantly for a sports car, turned on at the most suitable moment. Electronics favorably allow the driver to independently return the car to the trajectory, but the situation is barely threatened to get out of control, engine power drops and brake chatter is heard.
I'll try to turn off a smart and sensitive system. It seems that Audi specialists are able to configure not only electronics. Outside of public roads, you are quickly and finally convinced of the approximate behavior of the new RS4 chassis clear reactions to steering wheel turns, good exchange rate stability, and minimum rolls. True, the suspension differs not only in the characteristics of shock absorbers and springs. The clearance of 30 mm is lower than that of conventional A4, the front wheels were expanded by 37 mm, the rear by 47 mm. In addition, at the request of the buyer on the RS4, Pyrell P-Zero Corsa racing tires are installed 255/35R19 dimensions.
The DRC (Dynamic Ride Control) dynamic planting device was first tested on RS6. Specialists from Kvattro improved the development, making it more compact and easier. Shock absorbers are connected by diagonals with hydraulic highways with the central valve. If you need to reduce the rolls in corners or digging during acceleration and braking, the valve passes the liquid from one shock absorber to another. Pure mechanics and no electronics at our time, when it seems, on the way processors are in the erasers and paper clips!
But the advantages of the chassis would not be so convincing without a new all -wheel drive. Like the predecessor model, the moments between the axes are distributed by the differential of Torsen. By the way, again I take off any electronics. Now the new RS4 in habits has become more like a rear -wheel drive car, because there is 40% torque ahead, the remaining 60%. But if some wheels were stained, then torsen can translate to this axis at least the whole moment. Nevertheless, the electronics grabbed a piece of the cake behind the distribution of moments between the wheels, the EDS system monitors, brakes the masking side.
I just studied the track and got used to the car, and the time of stay at the training ground has expired. Eh, it’s a pity to part with the Audi RS4. But I won’t risk driving on such a car for 365 days a year and the onslaught wants something more dead and softer. The car is wonderful, it is really able to give pleasure and arrange a holiday, but after the holiday it is always better to relax.

 
 

Maxim Sachkov

Source: The magazine "Driving"