Friend of mine is on vacation and traded me his car to drive for the week in exchange for a ride to and pickup from the airport. So I'm puttering around in his 05 A4 TDI instead of my NA 1.6 Caddy.
It's interesting in comparison. It's quick, stock other than the ECU was flashed by some performance outfit awhile back. I can feel the VNT altering boost pretty quickly to, I assume, get the most out of things, there is such a huge just.... BALL of torque that swells up all at once. If the thing didn't have the traction control stuff it'd be hard to drive safely in the rain. That being said I have the same complaint I have with gas engine turbo cars, older one's at least, the power-band is so nonlinear, it feels unnatural. It's not an on/off switch like the old 911 turbo's are but it isn't predictable either.
It works, and I guess you do what you can to get power of a 1.9L diesel, but still. It's weird.
I wonder if the mechanical VNT controllers people cobble up are better or worse about that?
Otherwise the car is competent but boring, it feels just like a Boxster or a Civic or whatever to me.
The brakes aren't as confidence inspiring as I'm used to on German stuff, but the ABS is on point.
It's a nice car, even with 100K, and my bud keeps his stuff up well.
Can't help but think an A1 chassis car needs this sort of diesel power, just with more predictable power delivery, since it lacks the traction-nanny this one has.
I'll have to think on that for awhile.
Topic: A week with an A4 PD TDI (Read 2426 times)
