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| From Blogger Pictures |
It was just shy of three years ago I brought the car, on a little bit of an impulse. I decided I needed a sports coupe that still had a reasonable sized boot. For a budget of £20,000 very little (that I liked) seemed to fit the bill. The Nissan 350Z could just about be brought on that budget then but the strut brace across the middle of boot renders it surprisingly impractical. I could have gone for one of the sportier 3 series coupes but I have previously had two of those and just fancied a change.
To be honest I didn't plan to keep the car this long, the idea was run it for 6-9 months and then offload it before depreciation bit too much, which was another reason for choosing a TT as despite it's lack of sporting credentials it was then very much in demand and depreciation was fairly slow for a 2-3 year old car.
It didn't take too long to find the car I was looking for as The Audi website flashed up a 24,000 mile 3.2 in Silver with red leather interior at the Audi dealer just round the corner from my parents in Surrey. The car was fully loaded as it turned out the car was first registered to the Audi Press fleet (it even fleetingly appears in Top Gear's feature on the TT 3.2), with the upgraded stereo, heated seats, xenon headlamps etc.
Initially I was very pleased with the car, the engine is very smooth and powerful with a pleasing exhaust note (although you can hear it a lot better from the outside) and having brought it in November the heated seats and Quattro system make it a very good winter sports coupe.
The DSG gearbox was very effective but for my liking it is too orientated to being the auto mode rather than the manual option with the paddles. Surprisingly the manual mode is selected off drive rather than the sport mode which utilises an auto blip on the downshift. In actual fact I didn't like the sport mode very much the, gear shifts are too aggressive for everyday driving.
The first major expense was new tyres. I'm not sure how long the Continental's the car had when I brought had been on the car but after at around 30,000 miles I replaced them with a set of Pirelli P Zero Rossa's. These lasted about 20,000 miles before being replaced by another set of the same. The tyres are very low profile and offer very little protection against kerbing. I managed to kerb three of the four wheels which is annoying.
My first major gripe was the servicing costs. The car has longlife service intervals which meant it went roughly 19,000 miles between scheduled trips to the dealer. The first service I had at Slough Audi cost a credit card wilting £1,000 although this did include rear discs and pads (surprisingly in 40,000 miles I never needed front discs or pads). The service adviser was rather apologetic at the price, and then proceeded to point out the car also needed a change of the oil in the DSG gearbox which they could do for a very unreasonable £200. I was recommended to use independent VW group specialist Volks Autos in Sutton surrey who were able to do the change for a more reasonable £120 (the oil itself accounting for most of that.
The car never broke down but it did suffer one very expensive failure in the catalytic coverter failled. Volks Autos diagnosed that a faulty temprature sensor had resulted in the engine management system squrting more fuel into the engine and some of it combusting in the exhaust system burning the end of the cat. This set me back £750 (the cat itself costing £700 on an exchange basis.
My biggest gripe however was with the way it drives. For a sports coupe it was just not that much fun. The steering was dull and inert and the car was clearly set up for large amounts of understeer (the big V6 up front probably being the culprit). In 40,000 miles I don't think I once took the car out just for the sake of having a drive something I did with both the 3 series and my much missed Porsche 944S2.
I did howeve manage one big drive for a reason down to the South of France for a holiday in 2007 (including a stop at the historic Rheims circuit pictured below). The TT did demonstrate surprising economy averaging 31mpg for the trip. Serious touring was limited by a very variable fuel gauge, which seemed to do 200 miles on the first half a tank and maybe 100 miles on the next half. The TT was also the most annoying car to refuel, endlessly clicking as soon as there was more than 35 litres in the tank.
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| From Blogger Pictures |
The final nail in the TT's coffin is not entirely it's fault. The 3.2 engine produces 238g km of CO2 which puts it in the £425 tax band, while that's justifiable on an new Ferrari it doesn't add up on a six year old Audi worth less than £10,000. The tax changes have had a marked effect on values. V6's are now worth no more and possibly less than the 1.8T 225 equivalents.
As you might guess I'm not rushing to by a new TT and while I'm told the Mk2 is a lot nicer to drive I still prefer the looks of the Mk1. My company has provided me with an Alfa Mito to use every day, leaving me to look for something fun (and also more usable than the Daytona). I blogged my thoughts on this several times on the now defunct Drivers Republic, and to update those readers (and contributors) the choice has narrowed to an air cooled 911 of some description until I change my mind again!
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