OK so I took the kiddos on a road trip in the R from Chicago to the Jersey Shore last week. The R did great! Love the car. Ran flawlessly. A few comments:
1. Continental Tires are not so sturdy. Front Left tire developed a bubble on the way there, I don't recall hitting any big potholes or anything, but saw it when we were in Jersey. Drove back on it after Jersey dealer couldn't find a replacement tire in stock. Should probably have tried the Audi dealership instead of VW in hindsight. $200 replacement on its way from TireRack (we passed the warehouse on the way home actually). Car had about 5k miles on it when the tire sidewall failed.
2. ACC (adaptive Cruise Control) is the best! wow is it just a fantastic feature. I have a 6M car so some shifting is required as the car slows down for heavier trraffic. It disengages at about 15-20 mph, the following gap, even the shortest setting, is fine for highway driving but crap for bumper to bumper traffic near NYC or Chicago where everyone will just cut in front of you because of the gap. Overall my favorite feature on the car by far... this made the road trip so much less stressful and you could just set a speed and forget it. If someone pulled out and was slower the car would brake and tail a bit behind until the road was clear ahead again. Nice work VW/Audi group on that tech! I won't buy another car without it or a similar capability. This worked great on the highway out in the country and also in bumper to bumper Chicago traffic as long as the traffic did not slow to a stop. ACC was also really great when we hit construction zones and the highway went to a single lane. Takes all the headaches of the slowing down and speeding up and so on out of it.
3. MPG was 29 on the way there, 28.5 on the way back. About 400 miles per fill up.
4. Jersey Shore: Decent place to visit. Some crazy nice cars (my son has pics of some of the Ferrari's and McLarens, but most everyone there has a Bentley, 911, and Mercedes which is actually pretty boring when you see 5 houses on a block with the same exact cars)... People there really do overuse spray on tans.... Difficult to stop the kids singing the Oompa Loompa song too loudly. Amazing homes on the shoreline, and yes they are still rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy... Beach access is pay to play which is meh. (we were visiting family, otherwise we'd stick to Lake Michigan's shore)
1. Continental Tires are not so sturdy. Front Left tire developed a bubble on the way there, I don't recall hitting any big potholes or anything, but saw it when we were in Jersey. Drove back on it after Jersey dealer couldn't find a replacement tire in stock. Should probably have tried the Audi dealership instead of VW in hindsight. $200 replacement on its way from TireRack (we passed the warehouse on the way home actually). Car had about 5k miles on it when the tire sidewall failed.
2. ACC (adaptive Cruise Control) is the best! wow is it just a fantastic feature. I have a 6M car so some shifting is required as the car slows down for heavier trraffic. It disengages at about 15-20 mph, the following gap, even the shortest setting, is fine for highway driving but crap for bumper to bumper traffic near NYC or Chicago where everyone will just cut in front of you because of the gap. Overall my favorite feature on the car by far... this made the road trip so much less stressful and you could just set a speed and forget it. If someone pulled out and was slower the car would brake and tail a bit behind until the road was clear ahead again. Nice work VW/Audi group on that tech! I won't buy another car without it or a similar capability. This worked great on the highway out in the country and also in bumper to bumper Chicago traffic as long as the traffic did not slow to a stop. ACC was also really great when we hit construction zones and the highway went to a single lane. Takes all the headaches of the slowing down and speeding up and so on out of it.
3. MPG was 29 on the way there, 28.5 on the way back. About 400 miles per fill up.
4. Jersey Shore: Decent place to visit. Some crazy nice cars (my son has pics of some of the Ferrari's and McLarens, but most everyone there has a Bentley, 911, and Mercedes which is actually pretty boring when you see 5 houses on a block with the same exact cars)... People there really do overuse spray on tans.... Difficult to stop the kids singing the Oompa Loompa song too loudly. Amazing homes on the shoreline, and yes they are still rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy... Beach access is pay to play which is meh. (we were visiting family, otherwise we'd stick to Lake Michigan's shore)