Audi S3 – quite fast!

Its a shame that this thread has descended into the usual rubbish

No cyclists have ever broken 30mph on the road or jumped red lights, cycled on footpaths or pavements. We’re all perfect

The reason it descended this way is because of the latest death by dangerous driving incident that involved an Audi S3 hitting a cyclist. I thought that the terrible coincidence of this thread and that story highlighted an important point; speed is almost always a contributing factor in accidents.

I have relatively powerful car myself and I love the smoothness of the engine but I never exceed the speed limit.

There’s nothing wrong with having a fast, powerful car; fill your boots. Just don’t drive it in a way that endangers other people or alternatively, as some sensible folk have indicated, take it on a track.

It’s not really sad though is It?, it’s par for the course on this forum that those that don’t….try and dictate to those that do, and if you disagree the might of the righteous will strike you down yadda…yadda…yawn…get over it…..gtf.

Can I join you in the needless slaughter of baby robins?, I’ve a jack Russell here that loves to scrunch them till their heads pop off, he’s also pretty deft at de-tailing red squirrels.

those that don’t….try and dictate to those that do

I think that’s called the law isn’t it?

Awe, goodbye to a reasonably good thread about appreciation of the good old S3..

Is disappoint 🙁

No cyclists have ever broken 30mph on the road

You know that’s not against the law don’t you?

You know that’s not against the law don’t you?

This was my understanding as well.

I also think on the whole that the people who own really fast cars (as proper driving machines to be driven quickly, rather than as bling, bling ‘look at me’ show ponies) look after and maintain their cars well, increasing safety, spend money on good tyres, increasing safety, care about improving their driving skills and road craft, again increasing safety, and are knowledgeable and interested about a whole range of motoring issues, further increasing safety. It’s the ignorant drivers who dislike cars and driving, with no interest in improving their skill set you should be far more worried about I’d have thought.

That’s going into my yearbook…The Big Book of STW Bullshit, 2014.

I’m not even going to read this thread, I cannot do anything more than pity those who think that driving fast makes them better than anyone else. I will however link to this story

According to Lancashire Police, two cyclists were crossing the bridge over the M6 motorway “when an Audi S3 travelling in the opposite direction failed to negotiate a left hand bend and collided with the rear of one of the bikes.”

http://road.cc/content/news/116704-witness-appeal-after-cyclist-killed-near-preston-sunday

Actually I didn’t know about the 30mph thing. Dammit, now I can increase my average speed on rides to over 30mph without a problem… 😆

agent007, your post is just one long, I am a better driver than you cliche. You of course think you are a driving God and no doubt will consider me an idiot.

Completely disagree, I’m far from a perfect driver so that’s the reason I’ve been on extra driving courses to help improve my skills and awareness in areas I consider lacking. Does that make me a perfect driver now – no of course it doesn’t, I still make mistakes, but it does means I’m a far better and far safer driver now than I was before I took the extra training. There’s still a lot left to learn though.

As I overtake lots of fast cars much faster than my bike I often wonder why people have them, it must be frusyrating as ****.

Not at all, I get annoyed at some other drivers who are indecisive, inconsiderate or unaware of their surroundings whilst driving, but having a faster car means that many more opportunities to safely overtake present themselves than they otherwise would.

As for your bike comment then please feel free to ride how you like but also be aware that motorcyclists are just 1% of total road traffic, but account for 19% of all road user deaths.

Just want to apologies for contributing to or even being the progenitor for the degeneration of this thread.

I really do get and understand the love of motoring, of driving fast and enjoying a high performance car. I was once a real petrol head myself; I did track days from time to time and even considered getting my ARDS license.

Then I had a fairly decent crash, fortunately on an empty road and fortunately nothing I didn’t walk away from. It was entirely my fault and was entirely down to me over estimating my abilities, something that many of us do.

Even the best racing drivers crash so no matter how capable a driver you are (and there are undoubtedly many capable drivers on this forum) you are still increasing your chances of having an accident if you’re driving at speed and closer to your limit than otherwise.

Speed is absolutely a contributing factor in many crashes; you just can’t get away from that fact. It’s demonstrated time and again. Speed is also energy and it’s energy that causes injuries in an accident so any accident where you’re carrying more speed than the law allows for means you’ve recklessly endangered either yourself or someone else’s life unnecessarily. You can spend as long as you like thinking it won’t be you or won’t happen to you but that’s like smoking thirty a day and telling yourself you won’t get cancer.

Fast cars are lovely; I honestly love everything about them but they are, to a great degree, pointless because any responsible individual just wouldn’t take the risk of endangerment to others by driving them at the speeds they are capable of.

As for your bike comment then please feel free to ride how you like but also be aware that motorcyclists are just 1% of total road traffic, but account for 19% of all road user deaths.

very true and the vast majority of those deaths are single vehicle incidents, can the same be said about car crashes?

Fast cars are lovely; I honestly love everything about them but they are, to a great degree, pointless because any responsible individual just wouldn’t take the risk of endangerment to others by driving them at the speeds they are capable of.

Understand what you’re saying, but I think it misses the point a little. A fast car will rarely, if ever, see its full potential used, even on something like a German autobahn. What a fast car does get, as mentioned above, is better brakes, tyres and handling.

Following on from this, it could be asked: what is more dangerous? A responsible IAM member in a quick car or a ‘youf’ in an old hatch that will be ragged silly to get anywhere quickly?

Cancer or aids. Which is worse. Its an irrelavent point.

Cancer is better. Who wants to shag aids guy?

agent007 sounds a lot like Surfmat 😆

What a fast car does get, as mentioned above, is better brakes, tyres and handling

So, if this entirely and solely a safety issue, why don’t we find these items on base model shopper hatchbacks?

Following on from this, it could be asked: what is more dangerous?

Any **** of any age in a hurry in any vehicle. Barryboys in novas, powerrangers on z1s, whatever.

The terminally unaware, or anyone possessing an unknown/undeclared and serious medical condition (epilepsy for instance).

Price point

So, if this entirely and solely a safety issue, why don’t we find these items on base model shopper hatchbacks?

Because people wont pay extra for them.

Witness the god awful tyres you can buy that still meet the various minimum standards, but increase breaking distances massively, decreased grip on cornering etc.

You can spend 30 quid on a tyre, or you can spend 100 quid on a tyre. The 100 quid tyres will be dramatically better by an objective and measurable amount, and could make the difference between crashing or not, yet a lot of people will not pay the extra because they are ignorant and thinkthat if theh dont speed they are safe.

Perhaps I could rephrase that.

If it is solely a safety issue that you as a responsible driver are concerned with, why don’t you just fit bigger brakes & decent tyres to your <insert-not-massive-bhp-car-here> ?

I think fast cars are safer, but thats not why I buy them. For me the safety reasons are a nice side benefit.

Putting aside the fact that no such car can actually be bought , a car with a low power engine, but that has the brakes tyres, chassis etc of a high powered on, would still not be able to do any of the following:-

– accelerate quickly-there are no laws limiting acceleration
– sound nice
– be as ‘special’ as an item of engineering.

Anyway, why does anyone need to justify it, its not against the law to own a fast car(yet)

The whole ‘ why do you need a fast car’ argument is starting to sound more and more like the why do you need 160mm travel front and rear on your mountain bike, it because I want it, its available to me, and I can afford it, buying one and using one is not against the law, so why shouldnt I?

Any **** of any age in a hurry in any vehicle. Barryboys in novas, powerrangers on z1s, whatever.

The terminally unaware, or anyone possessing an unknown/undeclared and serious medical condition (epilepsy for instance).

By that reasoning we should not be able travel any faster than at a quick jog. Just in case.

Anyway, why does anyone need to justify it, its not against the law to own a fast car(yet)

That’s never been at issue on the thread. The issue is driving fast and driving in excess of the speed limit (where the difference is that the speed limit is only the speed you must not exceed ever on that road and not the speed it is legally safe to drive at).

Liked the “red socks” comparison – so on the money!!

Couple of key issues here – appreciating, liking, wanting and ultimately owning a fast car does not make you into some dangerous drag strip wannabe, in just the same way that owning a bike does not make you an old lady hitting, red light jumping, pedestrian scaring “cyclist” (god I HATE the term cyclist too).

It’s pretty comical that for a site with so many hand wringy lefties who are against prejudice and casting aspersions against a group based on a few, that they can then do exactly that and make judgements based on their own prejudices.

As has been said, a high performance car like an S3 has better brakes, better suspension and ultimately a better range of useful power delivery to get you out of a tight spot when needed. I know that in our TT 1.8 225 (mapped to around 270), I feel much more secure in the knowledge there is tons of grip, braking power and secure road holding. Does that make me or the wife into some wanton aggressive driver? No.

Just as most of us don’t “need” a carbon framed 160mm bike honed on the EWS (or have the skillset to push it to the limit of it’s capability) but accept people like nice things, so too should we accept that people like nice fast cars – ownership of these cars doesn’t turn you into a lunatic driver and it’s a gross prejudice to think that it would.

I actually feel a little bit dirty now for being hand wringy and offended on behalf of someone other than myself. I’m off to read the guardian and socialist worker now.

Weren’t the 1.8 TTs all recalled because of several deaths caused by massive and unpredictable lift off over steer?

yup, hence them all getting the wee spoiler on the back and a suspension tweak iirc. Don’t know if the oversteer was unpredictable, but it was massive enough to launch a few backwards off of alpine roads

EDIT: Must’ve been 10 years+ since all that

Weren’t the 1.8 TTs all recalled because of several deaths caused by massive and unpredictable lift off over steer?

A lot (including ours) were recalled for coil pack issues (like a huge number of other VAG 1.8 engines) but other than that, nothing to my knowledge and ours has been regularly in at main dealer and has all documents related to that recall – I’ve also seen the VAG recall notification system and don’t remember seeing anything like that.

It’s a bloody nice car, very fast in the right situations and extremely secure feeling. So far, no kittens, robins, puppies or any other creatures have been injured in it’s lifetime, at least with us.

The very first (I.e. The first few production runs) had this issue.

But wtf does it have to do with this thread

Still, since you bought up the subject of drivers, I also think on the whole that the people who own really fast cars (as proper driving machines to be driven quickly, rather than as bling, bling ‘look at me’ show ponies) look after and maintain their cars well, increasing safety, spend money on good tyres, increasing safety, care about improving their driving skills and road craft, again increasing safety, and are knowledgeable and interested about a whole range of motoring issues, further increasing safety. It’s the ignorant drivers who dislike cars and driving, with no interest in improving their skill set you should be far more worried about I’d have thought.

Absolutely.

I bought the 1st 4WD Golf – V6 4Motion and the first thing I realised was the brakes were under powered for the engine, so they were swapped to Brembo GT, then the tyres were swapped to Pilot Sports, then as it still had a tendency to break away on the limits I stiffened it up with better anti-roll bars and firmer shocks. Massively increased the margin of safety when pushing the limit and it ended up being very controllable and just drifted sideways in a very well behaved manner which you would control. Wasn’t that quick in a straight line (230 bhp after tuning), but the cornering was amazing.

But wtf does it have to do with this thread

Nothing other than the reference to one having lots of grip. It probably sounded like a troll but it wasn’t meant as such.

They did add the spoiler and made some modifications to the anti-roll bar but as also pointed out, that was back when the TT was firs launched.

The suggestion was that the lift off over steer was only typically seen at high speeds (well above 70mph) and that the recall and modifications were done more to avert negative publicity than anything else.

I always thought the spoiler spoiled (pun intended) the lines.

Massively increased the margin of safety when pushing the limit and it ended up being very controllable and just drifted sideways in a very well behaved manner which you would control.

You see, this is what those of us who are getting upset are getting upset about, assuming you’re doing this on public roads rather than a track.

You don’t uprate a car’s engine, suspension and brakes because you want to be safer. You do it because you want to ‘drive at the limit’.

I always thought the spoiler spoiled (pun intended) the lines.

Fair enough! It was why it was added, a bit after market, hence why the mk 2 had the pop up spoiler

I dont own a fast car at the moment, but my brother V50 t5, with a phase 3 tuning done to it is kicking out 360bhp, his impreza is a little more now. But id much rather be in the volvo, it eats tyres,but is so much more secure on the road and inside it feels like a luxury car.
the impreza is quicker round a corner but rattles like a piggy bank. and is left for dust in a straight line.

I think the 1.8TT was recalled due to a lot more people looking like cocks on the road – wasn’t it a “reconsider your choice of car” type recall?

I dont like Audi A3’s. Any car that puts in the brochure that they use the brakes to help steer the car rounds corners (because otherwise it would understeer like a pig) should be avoided IMO.

Cars that can go fast in a straight line are dull.

You can drive dangerously in a cheap car or an expensive one, a slow one or a fast one.

@dan – I think the A3 Quattro is only available in 3 doors yes ? Ideally I’d like a 4dr.

deadlydarcy – Member
I think the 1.8TT was recalled due to a lot more people looking like cocks on the road – wasn’t it a “reconsider your choice of car” type recall?
POSTED 27 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

😆

Apparently the S1 is no slouch either.

I think it is, yes. Not sure if they do the Sportrack version in Quattro form though.

Edit : just googled, and there are some newer 5 door A3 Quattros.