tutt

Reserved an Infiniti G35 for a week long trip to Northern California. Hoping to get my hands on an Audi Q7, I called OAK for a reasonable upgrade upon arrival. 1 Q7 in a PC stall didn't have my name on it. A beautiful Ibis White A6 was waiting for me.

http://www.audiusa.com/audi/us/en2/n...udi_A6/A6.html

Power: The 3.2L V6 with 255 hp left me wondering how this would match up to the G35s 300+hp, but not for long. It is matched with a 7-speed multitronic continuously variable timing transmission. With so many gadgets to play with, I chose not to mess with perfection and waste time shifting myself. Fuel economy is listed at 21/29 city/highway. Name one good reason to drive 60mph to test German accuracy.

Ride/Handling: An extremely well balanced response vs. comfort medium. It was as comfortable and controlled driving down curvy Lombard Street posing for tourists as it was out on the open road cruising with plenty of power in reserve. Little worries with the Servotronic vehicle speed-sensitive power steering watching your back.

Interior: The sophisticated birch burl inlays and beige leather interior perfectly complement the understated simplicity of the A6’s exterior. Ample passenger room front and back without any awkward or out-of-reach controls. The rear center seat conceals an armrest with both beverage holders and a First Aid kit. Everything is exactly where it should be.

Features: Price as configured on Audi's site is over $48,000. With Premium and Convenience packages, Sirius and Neverlost. Audi's extremely intuitive Multi Media Interface is simply wonderful. Controls for almost every feature are right at your fingertips. A driver information center has controls right on the wheel. An incredible lighting package including the exterior mirrors and even under the seats when entering and exiting.

Value: I was told this A6 rents for between $500 and $600 a week. It was not on the list of selectable cars at OAK. With discounts and a free upgrade from the G35 it came in at under $50 per day before taxes and fees.

The Good: Knowing you never run out of cool new features to discover, yet extremely intuitive.

The Bad: Neverlost and not the original Navigation system. Being teased by a speedometer that goes up to 170 mph. One annoying feature was the MPG estimator that was too sensitive, constantly changing from 18mpg to 50mpg depending on pedal pressure and road conditions.

The Ugly: Not testing the electronically limiting speed at 135mph

Warning: Read the manual before the power lunch and don't forget to disengage the child safety feature on the back windows and doors, your colleagues will thank you.

Phoenician Aviator

Nice review - thanks for posting!

Question: how did you reserve a G35 in the first place for under $50/day??

Then a comment: the variable MPG issue you complain about is actually a fairly standard feature on many German cars. Bimmers, for example, have a needle that swings to indicate an instantaneous MPG reading. Quirky but they've kept it around all these years.

tutt

The online system allowed both a 12% AMEX discount plus the current $40 off weekly Prestige rental.

I often times try and test the system closer to my departure date and the same car had jumped almost $100 for the week and was no longer the coupe, but rather, the sedan.

I have seen the MPG estimators on other vehicles, this one seemed more pronounced and in your face. Most of the other instrumentation seems more graceful and controlled especially the MMI.

Smaruri

Well, I rented a gray Audi A6 last December at IAH and it was a 3.2 quattro with tiptronic 6 speed transmission.
The one you had was the front wheel drive version FrontTrack (This one has CVT 7 speed transmission)???
Nice Review!!!

tutt

This was my first ride report. First rule of Ride Report -- take photos of the actual car for accountability. I do not recall any quattro badging and assumed it was the Frontrack 3.2. I do know it had 7-spoke wheels and not the 16-spokes standard on the quattro model. I will try to verify with the desk at OAK, and look through photos from the trip that might show otherwise.

Big Mac

Nice review! In my opinion, the Audi A8 is the best car Hertz has followed by the A6.

BTW, what you saw was the instantaneous MPG. To get the average MPG, you had to toggle a switch on the wiper stalk. That switch toggles through different readouts (German cars).

Had this one for a week just a couple of weeks ago:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y120/gxshiem/Hertz%20Audi%20A6/A6.jpg

AndDee

Very nice, the one that I had a few weeks ago was the 3.2 Quattro!

For the other people who have had the A6 on here, was Sirius fully activated ? Mine wasnt!

sdcarver

I rented one in San Diego--Yes the Sirius was fully activated.

sdcarver

photojojo

Good report and pretty spot on.

For future reference, on the wiper blade there is a toggle switch on the end that allows you to scroll through the menus up or down. I believe it's current MPG, average MPG (between resets), average MPH (between resets), miles until tank empty (auto resets after refueling) and time driven. To reset any of the "averaging" features, there is a push button on the bottom of the wiper lever. I typically leave it on average MPG because otherwise my heart sinks when I drop it in to 4th to pass people on the highway. Granted I'm in a 2.7T manual but still... when you see 6.0 MPG you sort of sigh a little.

As for the engine's power, the non R/S versions are totally watered down. A simple chip upgrade got my 250hp engine to 318. Also, don't entirely believe the HP ratings of cars coming out of Asia. It's widely known that they are overexagerating their engine output by about 10%. I can't recall if Infinity is one of the culprits.

SpeedRicer

Great review. ^ I had an A6 3.0 TDI out of DUS a few months ago, and echo your sentiments on this car...

SpeedRicer

The most well known are Mazda and Hyundai, IIRC. I don't think Lexus/Infiniti had the same problem though, unless you count the SAE changes that impact the way all manufacturers have to state horsepower.

UNITED959

On the wiper stalk, on the bottom there's a small "reset" button. If you touch it, it'll go through 3 menus on the driver info display (between the speedometer and tach). There's a "1", a "2", and a blank screen.

1 - Current trip. This resets if the vehicle has been off for 2+ hours.
2 - Accumulated trip. This resets only when the driver manually resets it (but holding down that reset button that's used to toggle the menus)
3 (but no number is indicated) - Blank screen. In case the LCD bothers you.

In "1" and "2" it clocks elapsed time, avg speed, avg mpg. It also shows instant mpg and distance to empty.

tutt

Thanks for the compliments. I was shooting for the sticky Ride Report Quicklinks and just enough to get the nod from "prashok" who has set the bar quite high for great Ride Reports…bravo!

AndDee: My A6 had full Sirius

Photojojo: I grew up in your neck of the woods between CVG and DAY.

And to all the other posters, thanks for describing the MPG estimator and how to MAKE IT STOP!, should I be so lucky to have one of these beuaties in my Gold stall again someday, sweet ride.

Knowing that this A6 came up from SJC or over from SFO, I may have led you astray—and it may have been a 6-speed AWD quattro—will post again when I have a definitive answer.

frido

If the factory-installed Nav-system is installed and a destination is set, you get the directional arrows on a 3rd screen in between the 2 info-screens and the blank screen.

At least that´s what it´s like in my measly Audi A2.

Bye, Frido.

photojojo

If you say Middletown, I'll have a heart attack.