Does anyone have a Minivac for their A4. Do you need an adapter for the A4 for this? How much do they go for?

LIKES

1. Car is one week old and getting better. My husband was attached to the hip with the car this weekend. He loved it. We both love the Onyx/Anthracite interior. It is great because the texture of the leather is not slippery like other cars I've owned, which leads to more spirited driving, the color of the leather and and other interior appointments are really a dark gray, not black. In the sunlight, it really looks dark gray. At night it looks black, untill you open the doors and the ambient lighting tells you otherwise. It is very elegant.

2. It amazed the two of us that the suspension barely lets you know that you are hitting rough surfaces. Nice ride for both driver and passenger. The electric lumbar is great!

3. Love the red lights and really like the white lights on the instrumentation. Really breaks up all the red very nicely.

4. The Bose stereo is great! I had one in my Nissan, and thought that was good until I heard this one. We both agree this is better than the Nissan one.

DISLIKES

1. This doesn't bother me, but my husband (like alot of you), thinks the power window switches are much too far back. He has very long arms, and finds it awkward to use them. I, on the other hand, after driving various different cars that had them in the middle console think they're just fine.

2. I wrote about the defroster not defrosting the dew in the morning, taking a long while. Well, we had little gremlins this past week. It wouldn't defrost the dew for me all last week, but Saturday night, when we got out to the car it was very foggy, and my husband turned on the rear defroster and it defrosted the window in no time. This morning, I couldn't get the dew off again. Can't understand this. I wonder if it works better with the ambient temperature being colder outside.

Anyway, other than these little niggling things, there is nothing at all to complain about, at least hopefully not yet. BTW, when it rains and you open the window, does the water drip into the car really bad. I had that with my Pathfinder, and it dripped constantly all over the power window switches, and I swore that one day they would all short out. Maybe that's why alot of car manufacturers put the power window switches in the middle of the console instead of the door. Hmmm......

have 2.8, 1.8.....Need to know!!!

BTW.. everyone's whining about the so-called flat spot in the torque curve. Any impressions? I have only had my car for about 3 weeks, but unfortunately I am away on business, driven it only about 3 times. From the dealership home, to the office next morning, to the airport next day.. :-(

Sebastian
99.5 2.8QMS
Santorin Blue
Everything but Conv., Trip

If you explain what the flat spot in the torque curve is, I could definitely let you know, although I have Tip and you have manual. I don't if that would make a difference.

There have been quite a few posts regarding this flat torque issue. Apparently on the 30V engines between 2500-3500rpm there's no "real acceleration". That is, no pulling power and I have read that some Orger's (sp?) have installed chips. Not gaining much power but minimizing or actually getting rid of the "flat spot". It's probabably a belabored topic, but curious if you noticed..

Thanks in advance, anyone please join in..

Sebastian
99.5 2.8QMS......

well, I've had mine for a bout 1.5 weeks and I love the car. Just like bonnie pointed out, the window switches to me are too far back, it's a bit awkard to get to them.
The car seems to be getting better, I've registered 600 miles already on the car, can't stop driving..
the car really begins to come alive above 3K RPM's and I'm sure as the engine breaks in even further, the engine will loosened up a bit more...
Oh, before I forget I have a question.
reading the manual, when you arm the alarm with remote, the rear fog light is supposed to flash?
mine does not do this?
I see the little red lights flashing at the doors, can someone confirm this?
thanks,
99 2.8QMS

<i>Oh, before I forget I have a question. reading the manual, when you arm the alarm with remote, the rear fog light is supposed to flash?
mine does not do this? I see the little red lights flashing at the doors, can someone confirm this?</i>

The mention in the manual about the rear fog switch light flashing is incorrect. This is how the older A4's worked (like my '97) which didn't have any little lights by the door locks to indicate that the alarm was armed. I'm not sure precisely when this change was made.

<A HREF="Mailto:andy_hedin@hotmail.com">Andy Hedin</A>
'97 A4 1.8Tqms, Garrett 1.0 Bar, ABT Filter, Borla Exhaust, Euro Lights, more...

Torque is the force available from the engine to turn the wheels. The torque curve is the graph of this available force at each engine speed (RPM). A flat curve means that peak force is available over a wide range of engine speeds, probably a useful characteristic. A new chip would seek to increase torque by altering how the engine uses fuel, turbo, air, spark, etc. If the resulting torque curve has a sharp peak at, say, 5000RPM, that torque may not be useful to you
(especially at lower engine speeds recommended during breakin)!

nt

It's a little expensive (around $170.00), but it's got all the attachments that you need for a car. I bought mine from Griotsgarage.com. Check the website. It has all kinds of mini-attachments that are great for those hard to reach areas. As far as auto vacuums go, this is THE ONE.

Al
99.5 1.8tqtsc

Bonnie,
You seem to have answered your own question. I don't think there is anything wrong with your defroster.

Fog will clear much more quickly than dew.

After a shower, when your mirror is fogged up, put a hairdryer to it and it clears up quickly.
Spill some water on your bathroom counter and try to dry it up with the hair dryer...takes longer.

Get it?

...155 lb/ft from 1750 to 4600 rpm as per Audi's A4 brochure, whereas the 2.8 has 207 lb/ft at 3200 rpm but I don't know what the curve looks like. This "plateau" allows max torque over a larger area and thus in more gears, especially the low gears. To me, it makes the A4 feel faster than it really is, but that is just my subjective opinion. Maybe someone has a graph of these torque curves of the stock engines we all could view.

parkerpt
99.5 1.8T qms

As for a car vac, I have a Dirt Devil "Can Vac" that is great. It was hard to find a small canister vac like this, but I think I found it at K-Mart. The price was less than $100 (maybe around $60 or $70). It has several attachments that are stored on the vac (crevice tool and brush attachment), plus several others like extension wands and a floor sweeping attachment. The brush attachment is great for doing everything from dusting all the dash (and getting into all the crevices) to doing the seats and carpet. Suction is great, and the unit has a fairly long hose and cord and has wheels so that it is easy to drag around to where you need it. Also, it is small enough to fit in the footwells of the car, if you need to do that for some reason.

Dave M - '97 1.8tm, sport, sunroof