By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests
28 April 2011 16:00
Audi RS5: the outside â€" 28 April 2011
So, the spec…
The RS5 we pitched against M3, C63 AMG and IS-F in the November 2010 issue of CAR sported huge 20-inch alloys, enormous ceramic brakes, and torso-clamping RS bucket seats. Result? It lost. So, CAR’s new long-term RS5 is a little less focused, and will hopefully be better for it.
The ceramics (only at the front, mind) are a ridiculous £6250 â€" Porsche will sell you a set of the best ceramics in the business for under £6k, and you get them on all four corners too â€" so we’ve stuck with the standard stoppers. And as our RS5 will spend lots of time commuting and fast cruising, we’ve stuck with the regular seats as well â€" another £1380 saved.
And OY60EPJ rides on the standard 19in ‘Aero’ alloys, with 265/35 R19 rubber all round â€" the same size as the back boots on our Competition Pack-spec M3! Hopefully the smaller wheels will help the ride, but their design isn’t particularly appealing; the inch-bigger ‘Rotor’ wheels are £1700 (or £1800 if you want them with titanium-look trimmings) so if our RS5 fidgets we might upgrade and at least look good while we’re feeling uncomfortable.
How does it look overall? Not quite as small and svelte as a regular A5 coupe, but there’s a white RS5 near CAR HQ too, and every time I get a glance or glimpse of it you know it’s something more imposing than an S5 â€" the front bumper is a little bigger, the shoulders a little fuller. The differences are subtle, perhaps too subtle: the RS5 has unique front and rear wings, but you can’t help think that they should be massively squared off.
I think I’ve discovered my ideal RS5 in Audi’s official brochure though. It’s got the Black Styling Package, which means you lose the chrome around the windows, and the silver grille and splitter are also swapped out for darker items. It’s £365, but the results are worth it. BMW charges a similar about for high-gloss shadowline trim on the M3, but as CAR reader and M3 owner Hu11y points out: ‘I saw one the other day without it and thought it looked a bit cheap, so perhaps it wasn't all that dear!’
Keeping with the de-chromed theme, £110 gets you body coloured mirrors. You’ve got to pay extra for folding and dimming doors mirrors anyway, so you may as well cough up a little more. And strangely, without the trademark S/RS silver mirrors, the RS5 is transformed. You could complete the look with the £870 sports exhaust (complete with matt black trims), but an Audi dealer friend informs me it doesn’t make much difference.
And just to go off at a tangent, the noise the RS5 makes is very different in character to that of an M3. While the BMW sounds quite rough and gravely at low revs, the Audi woofles with a much more obvious, American-style V8 rumble. At higher rpm it’s sings a much deeper note than the highly strung M3, too.
Back to my ideal RS5, and although one part of me wants a autobon engine cover, it's a) not on display like an R8’s engine bay, b) I know every time it went in for a service the technicians would be laughing at me, and c) it’s £500. I would however spend £740 on trimming the wheel and gearstick in black suede â€" I’ve tried an RS3 with this option and it really lifts the cabin.
And now I'm going to stop living in a fantasy world.
By Ben Pulman
Audi RS5 hello â€" 11 April 2011
It’s probably fair to call the Audi RS5 controversial. Ever since Georg Kacher exclusively revealed the auto’s enticing specifications way back in August 2008 the world has been excited by the prospect of a new RS Audi. The last-generation RS4 was an excellent, M3-scaring proposition that put Quattro GmbH on the radar of enthusiasts, and the R8 supercars that have followed are Audis with great steering, a supple but controlled ride, and a four-wheel drive system that still allows hooligan antics. Much promise for the RS5, then.
And the spec only got us more excited. Rather than switching to turbocharged power, the RS5 has stuck with the RS4’s naturally aspirated 4.2-litre V8, but with tuning lifting power from an M3-matching 414bhp to an M3 GTS-equaling 444bhp. And there’s 317lb ft too, spread from 4000 to 6000rpm, rather than the M3’s 295lb ft at 3900rpm.
There’s no manual option, only a seven-speed S-tronic, but such big autos seem suited to autos and Audi has been making double-clutch gearboxes longer than anyone else. Power goes to all four-wheels, and although that negates the option of sideways antics, does that matter for the 95% majority? An M3 will take full throttle in the dry, an AMG product won’t, but both will flash their traction control lights and cut power in the wet â€" your average driver on your average road doesn’t want that worry. Obviously standing water and the state of your tyres will set the limit of grip and traction, but for many four driven wheels are better than two. So far, so good, right?
But the first drives left us cold, and a group test against the M3, C63 and IS-F left the RS5 out in the cold â€" it came last. Question is, does the RS5 deserve the three-star verdict that Jethro Bovingdon delivered, or will six months with this auto uncover the same great day-to-day usability that has endeared us to most of our recent Audi long-termers?
The A6 Allroad, A5 Coupe, S4 Avant, A5 Sportback, and Greg’s wonderful A8 have been found to be really good cars after we’ve lived with them for extended periods of time â€" will we eventually be able to say the same of the RS5 or was the RS4 a fluke and is the R8 just a Lambo in drag? We’re about to find out.
In the next report, we’ll discuss why we’ve gone for a very different spec from the RS5 that lost our group test.
By Ben Pulman
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