The new A6, the realtime impressions

Hi folks,

yesterday I was invited to the presentation of the new A6 at my dealer.

In europe the A6 is generally presented these days and Austria is no exception.

When I saw the new body the first time on pictures I was disappointed about the grille. No, not disappointed, I was startled. The back appeared to be nice but the front was odd.

Now, you folks who saw the pictures, know what I mean.

Finally I saw it in realtime and I instantly was converted. This car is a beauty.

The rear end is even better than I thought and the front is amazing. It does not at all look clumsy or odd or heavy. The grille fits _very_ nicely between those headlights and the line of the car is just fantastic.

Now for the interior:

The car had the 3.0l TDI engine (225 HP) and they had two of them standing there de facto fully loaded. You could sit inside and feel around, the batteries were actually connected so one could check the displays et al.

What I instantly liked were the seats. Leatherseats with excellent side support. I saw with enlightment that they reintroduced the extendable support for your upper legs. (Although, while pulling it out I hurt my finger ;-).

The parking brake is now electrical, so no lever, just a tiny flip up/down switch.

Seating comfort is great and the increased legroom is very nice. I'm

Feel and touch is very nice and firm.

The MMI (Multi Media Interface) is handy, but I did not have the time to play around a lot with it.

However, what set me back a little that it is in fact impossible to add an aftermarket radio to the car. I asked the head of the austrian Audi sales and they confirmed that it is not planned that this is possible. That means that you either have an Audi radio/navigation etc. or none (if that's possible anyway.

There is just no DIN slot anymore available to insert a radio or in dash CD or whatever.

And worse, you can hardly upgrade the system you bought in the beginning to a better one (unless it's audi). And the better ones have the larger displays. So all in all it might be a bit hard to change anything there. Better buy everything right from the start.

The salesman also told me that the MMI electronics is fully integrated into the cars electronics so messing around with it could mean messing around with drive electronics et all. Not somehting one wants to do lightheartedly.

But I'm sure the aftermarket industry will have their own developments out soon :-)

The Cruise Control is still on a (now separate) stick behind the steering wheel. I.e. not on the wheel as with the BMW's. I regret that, but test driving the A4 I got used to it fairly quickly.

All in all I must say I liked the interior and the feeling of room, yet at the same time of close surrounding like a glove. Hard to describe.

I could not drive the car (the test cars will be available beginning of may) but I definitley plan to.

Oh and the Avant will be released by spring next year. By end of this year the car will see a third diesel engine with 2.7 liters and 177 HP.

Regards

Wolfgang