AUTOBILD Comparo: Which is the best all-wheel drive car? New Audi A8 vs VW Phaeton W12 vs MB S500

[Aries]

Quattro vs. 4 Motion vs 4 Matic. Page 7 gives you the summary of evaluation results.

Autobild is a German mag. The URL has translated the article from German to English, so be creative with the interpretation.

Original German site (pic gallery works in this one):

http://www.autobild.de/test/allrad/a...1f70d4af2e72f4


Google translator is below:

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en


Translated article is below (pics do not work in this translation):[list][*]  

[Audi S5 TC]

According to Autobild, ventilated seats are unavailable on the new A8. However, according to C&D, Automobile Magazine, the Stretch A8 article here on AudiWorld and a member of AW named The Brit, ventilated front seats along with seat massagers in the front seat backrests and four way power lumbar for outboard rear seats are included in a premium seating package on the new A8. The Brit also confirmed all of this at the Birmingham Auto Show in the UK. Also, according to Automobile magazine and the Stretch A8 article on AW, a rear seat comfort package requiring the premium seating package includes full length (front to rear) center console with four bucket seats (two front and two rear) with both seat ventilation and massagers in the backrests for the rear bucket seats. The premium seating and rear seat comfort packages on the new A8 also require the convenience package on the new A8. That package includes heated front and outboard rear seats, heated steering wheel, power rear window sunshade and manual sliding sunshades for rear door windows, ski bag behing rear seat center armrest and power door, trunk lid and fuel filler lid opening and closing.

[PaulW]

[Aries]

the standard A8 4.2 from Germany, not the long wheelbase ("stretch"?). Presumably, ventilated seats are not offered on the standard A8 4.2 available at the time of the test.

If interested, you could check whether ventilated seats are offered on the standard A8 4.2 for last November in Germany on www.Audi.de, a German A8 catalogue or German specs list .

The Autobild article made no claims about ventilation seating on other A8 cars. I assume that you are right about the ventilated seats being on the future long wheelbase A8 (to be introduced in June 2003 in Europe) which is the version coming to the U.S.

Regardless of whether the A8 has ventilated seats or not, the focus of the evaluation was on the AWD capabilities of the cars.

[Audi S5 TC]

Perhaps they will become available on all versions of the new A8 and A8L when the new A8L comes out in June of 2003? Sometimes certain options like these become available at mid year and/or when other versions of a model come out. Yes, I know the point of the article was which car had the most capable AWD system.