Latest (3rd) episode of Five's Fifth Gear featured a new shootout! Thank you guys, thank you! This time it was between two very cool family estate cars - 3.6 liter V6 VW Passat Rrrr-36 Variant and the beautiful 3-liter Audi A4 Avant. Which one was faster around a handling circuit? You might be thinking that the bigger petrol car simply destroyed the smaller diesel one but actually it was very close race.
Many of you (including me) haven't seen the actual episode of Fifth Gear on TV and could not download it in Internet either because The Scene seem to have missed the show. Thankfully, Five TV website (www.five.tv/fifthgear) gives us a chance to watch clips from their most recent and previous episodes. You can see the particular shootout by following this link.
The new A4 has its engine placed further back than the old one (and than Passat
to). I think that was the key, less understeering. Also, new tech diesels have
nothing to fear against petrol engines; more torque whitch means more power at
lower rpm and better acceleration while going out of corners with no need to
change gear to boost the car. R36 is supposed to be the "sport" car so i think
in an allaround comparison (performance as well with comfort, fuel economy etc)
is loosing badly!
Passat and A4 do NOT share the platfrom the Passat engine is travers mounted...
the Passat has the same weight balance as all other midzize cars with travers
mounted engines..
The key was the 4motion vs real quattro specially the new setup quattro with
40/60 split.
The R36 is a Autobahnburner..and there it owns the A4 3.0TDI quattro badly..
Yes, i didn't said that they share the same platform. The new A4 have genes
(same plaform???) of the A5; they placed the engine further back. This is more
effective on versions with heavy engines. 40/60 split didn't help RS4 (which is
based on the old A4) to make a good lap at Serres. Clarkson and everyone who
drove RS4 said that the big engine in front was the cause of understeering. Audi
had deal with this in the new A4/A5; At Serres the less powerfull and less
hardcore S5 was quiker than RS4! So the engine position gave an advantage to A4
3.0 TDI for sure
“ more torque whitch means more power at
lower rpm ”
It absolutely doesn't matter cause petrol engines rev faster. Lower torque is
compensated by higher revs which at the end produces same or more power.
“ and better acceleration while going out of
corners with no need to change gear to boost the car.”
Again, nonsense. 300HP R36 is way more powerful than the 240HP 3.0 TDI at given
fraction of revs. Proof? Google for RRI (Rototest Institute) dyno charts for
both engines. 3.6 VR6 peaks at 6500rpm, at 3250 rpm (50%) it generates 110kW.
240HP 3.0 TDI peaks at 3500rpm, at 1750rpm (again, 50%) it generates less than
90kW.
The only reason why Audi did so well was down to the chassis. Better balance,
permanent AWD, better torque split. There you go.
Diesels arent any faster but I really like diesels, now things seem the only the
new diesel cars get an outstanding chissis and my diesel of choice would be the
3 series but in a manual. For some reason an automatic and a diesel dont match
for my brain.
Latest (3rd) episode of Five's Fifth Gear featured a new shootout! Thank you guys, thank you! This time it was between two very cool family estate cars - 3.6 liter V6 VW Passat Rrrr-36 Variant and the beautiful 3-liter Audi A4 Avant. Which one was faster around a handling circuit? You might be thinking that the bigger petrol car simply destroyed the smaller diesel one but actually it was very close race.
The new A4 has its engine placed further back than the old one (and than Passat
to). I think that was the key, less understeering. Also, new tech diesels have
nothing to fear against petrol engines; more torque whitch means more power at
lower rpm and better acceleration while going out of corners with no need to
change gear to boost the car. R36 is supposed to be the "sport" car so i think
in an allaround comparison (performance as well with comfort, fuel economy etc)
is loosing badly!
Passat and A4 do NOT share the platfrom the Passat engine is travers mounted...
the Passat has the same weight balance as all other midzize cars with travers
mounted engines..
The key was the 4motion vs real quattro specially the new setup quattro with
40/60 split.
The R36 is a Autobahnburner..and there it owns the A4 3.0TDI quattro badly..
Diesels arent any faster but I really like diesels, now things seem the only the
new diesel cars get an outstanding chissis and my diesel of choice would be the
3 series but in a manual. For some reason an automatic and a diesel dont match
for my brain.