2008 Audi R8: More More More

Bring it over to Bloomington, IN and give a bored college junior at Indiana University something to do for an hour or two... and something to brag about, haha.

"Guess what I got to ride in (or drive!?!?) today?"

Otherwise, I'd say take it to some tracks, try some track days. See how the wear and tear of tracking the car copes with daily driving.

Some people who get these performance cars might actually take them to the track (surprising, I know) and it may be interesting to see how that affects the reliability of the vehicle. I'm sure it may be negatively affected, but it's a matter of how negatively. Or in this case, just how solid is the R8?

Take it on a REAL road trip. Assign two editors to drive from LA to NYC taking a southern route through the US, and then fly them home. Two other editors will meet the car in NYC and then drive it all the way back to LA, taking a northern route.

Should be a good 6,000 miles on the car and a very good test of its reliability in every condition that the US has to offer.

Small issues aside I dont think there is a bad angle (inside or out) on the R8. This is a beautifully designed car.

I'd say take it on some great back roads in a road trip to the other side of the country and back. Make sure to include the Tail of the Dragon: http://www.tailofthedragon.com/. Another idea, take it to different motorsports parks\tracks across the country like Road America and Lime Rock.

Another vote for lots of track time in its next three months.

Let my wife drive it, it would have 100,000 miles on it in 3 months.

i think it would be prudent to see how well it performs in ALL types of driving. take it out to an off-roading park, and see how well it does.

lol, I love edmunds bias of ignorace,

On the Aura, a plastic button and a windscreen are cheap, and indicate how terrible the car is.

on a super car 100k+ the 'frunk' not closing and leather wearing out, are "Minor things"

please tell me again how you guys dont wear rose tinted glasses when it comes to imports.

20k miles in 3 mo's? I'd definitely expect some wear. For that kind of exotic car I'd be totally satisfied with what you are experiencing in terms of wear.

arm51,

ironically i just drove the tail of the dragon on 9/5. that along with the foothills parkway and a couple of hundred miles of the blue ridge parkway left me completely exhausted. see pics of me on moonshinephoto.com, 9/5/08, page 7 i think it was. photos 153, 154, 155, of 207. funny how they have photographers that just sit on corners and take your photo as you drive by and then you can purchase them on the net...

"So, what should we do with the Audi R8 for the next three months?"

Give it to me! Or to be fair to others, let some of the faithful blog commenters drive it! :)

I like the LA to NYC to LA idea. Except, see how quickly you can do it.

Some of you are forgetting that they already drove it across the country once...

Lol at greenpony's cannonball run suggestion.

And I was also going to propose a "give it to me" comment, but you guys could maybe do a contest here and the winner could get to drive it for a day and post about it here...maybe?

s197gt, nice! The only thing is that I have to plan to go there as I live around Chicago. I'm looking to get there some time soon, but work is making it a bit hard.

I think that leather looks nice. It's kind of like a good arm chair.
It's just showing some honest wear, unlike the people that idle out their cars and wax them, this looks like a car. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't know. My car is a whole lot older, has a whole lot more miles, and cost me a whole lot less (purchased new). It doesn't have any wear marks on the leather (not a trick, I do have leather seats).

This is a problem. Serious? Not really. More serious than a cheap looking sunroof button? Heck yes.

What to do:
Drive to Saint Louis ---> Meet me in front of Barnes-Jewish ----> Hand me keys :P

"I don't know. My car is a whole lot older, has a whole lot more miles, and cost me a whole lot less (purchased new). It doesn't have any wear marks on the leather (not a trick, I do have leather seats)."

Does your car have extremely aggressive side bolsters that are brushed hard every time you get in the car? Import or domestic, ANY car with very heavy bolstering and a low hip point like the R8 will likely experience heavy wear like that unless you are careful about it.

bimmerjay, BLA BLA BLA, all excuses on a 100K + cars.

what kind of quality control does audi have?

It amazes me, that the more people pay for stuff, the more problems they let slide.

the cheaper an item is, the more nit picky they become. To me its a backwards biazzaro world.

I'm not going to say its a major issue. I'm just saying that domestics get racked over the coals for small issues like this. But oh lordly not the precious audi.

if this was the aura, there would be 3 posts complaining about the seat. 3 posts about the trunk, then 3 more posts comparing the trunk to other trunks. Sitching on the silverado seat came undone and we had people ripping all of GMs designers, engineers, QA etc.

shouldn't we be harder on very expensive items? I know I would be.

I think it would be interesting if you guys took the R8 auto-crossing just to see how it fairs.

As for the hub-bub about the seat, it really shouldn't surprise people. This is an aggressively bolstered bucket and this car has an endless line of people constantly driving it to reach the desired mileage level. If it was a single driver vehicle, that person would grow accustomed to the ingress-egress procedure.

As for the other issues I do agree that they are suspect. The number of irritating little things that have broken on this car do not befit the $100+ price tag. In the 4 years we owned my wife's '04 SL600 we had to replace the sensor for the rain-sensing wipers, one of the air-suspension mounts, and a hinge for the retractable hard-top; but that car had 70,000 miles on it when we sold it and had barely any signs of wear, no rattles, and everything operated as new. My 2-year old S550 has 30,000 miles on it and hasn't had a single issue large or small. It was a first year vehicle as well so that cannot be used as an excuse for the R8.

Does this dull my enthusiasm for the car or make me lust for it less? Heck no, in fact you guys should end the test early because of these issues and just give the car to me. ;)

opfreak, the R8 just got "racked [sic] over the coals" a few entries ago for its cheap exterior door handles, and many complained that was being nitpicky.

I would consider this bolster wear a major issue. It would require replacement of the seat to fix, and it's pretty unsightly, especially on a car costing this much.

However, I've driven the R8 and I can attest to the fact that you have to get in "around" the bolster. This is pretty typical of very high performance cars. This one has seen very hard journalist use (even harder use than the average LT car, I'd say). I would expect actual owners to be a lot more careful with ingress. Do you honestly think a $100k+ pseudo-supercar is going to be MORE durable than an everyday day car??

But whatever, if you want to see bias you'll see it no matter what. FWIW, the Silverado and CTS both had seat trim failures in non-high-wear areas. Audi could put in a plastic panel to protect the leather, but that wouldn't look very nice now, would it?

Supercar comparo. Put that Audi through its paces...it's starting to look too relaxed.

"I think it would be interesting if you guys took the R8 auto-crossing just to see how it fairs."

Road and Track did it, the R8 finished mid pack:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/assets/download/0908_cvr_autocross.pdf

That kind of wear is absolutely par for the course on any high performance car with aggressive seat bolsters.

But it can be dramatically reduced by simple care.

"But it can be dramatically reduced by simple care."

It is a free press loaner car, noone cares.

The seat wear issue is a bit disappointing, but having said that, I've seen it happen on almost every car with bolsters this aggressive. Incidentally, I've always admired Porsche's seats for their ability to hold tight through the corners and they ease with which they can be entered and exited.

Do a comparison test of it vs. a porsche 911 and a corvette or something like that to see how it really stacks up in all areas.

It's kind of funny. We're not really attacking the R8, but using this as an example of how much more nitpicky people are on MUCH less expensive cars like the Aura and Focus.

I don't think the car is junk because of some wear. I do think there's a double standard when cars for the common people are ridiculed for much more minor issues (often non-issues).

Does wear on the leather like that mean it will likely fall apart? I ask because I hope to purchase a 328i one day through european delivery, and I like the brown leather quite a bit. Yet, I'm tempted to get the leatherette for frugality and durability. I wouldn't mind leather looking well-used like a reading chair, but splitting apart and needing replacement after several years is a different story...