New Winter Tyres for the Audi A6

With all the crazy winter snow we're having, i decided to treat the Audi to some winter tyres.

The Pirelli P-Zeros that it had on the OEM 19inch Le-Mans alloy wheels, were useless in the snow and even with the 4WD Quattro, i was still left slipping and sliding and scrabbling for grip.

So here they are, a full set of 18inch "Hankook Winter I*Cept Evos" on a set of Diamond SC7 wheels.

I opted for these wheels as the 7 twin spoke design looks pretty similar to the OEM Audi wheels so many wont notice i've swapped to winter wheels.

Lots have people have said I'm crazy for spending a large chunk of money on a set of winter wheels and tyres, but over in Europe, its law in many countries to have winter tyres on the car  in winter and summer tyres in summer. Also, whats the point in having a 4x4 car in the snow with summer tyres?

 As you can see from the picture, the tread on the winter tyres is much chunkier and better designed for gripping on cold snowy roads.
What you cant see from the photo is that winter tyres have a higher silica content which means the rubber in the tyres stays pliable at much lower temperatures compared to summer tyres.
When summer tyres go had and lose grip, winter tyres stay soft proving more grip on cold wet roads.

In fact winter tyres are best whenever the temperature drops below 7degrees, which in the UK is quite a few months of the year!!

New Car - Audi A6 Avant S-Line Quattro

I'm collecting my new car today. I needed something practical. The requirements list was as follows:

1. Must be an estate car to fit the dogs in

2. Must have 4x4 to cope with snowy conditions

3. Must NOT be slow (3l+ engine needed)

4. Leather interior (nobody has cloth!)

5. Built in Sat-Nav

So this is what i ended up with - its a Audi A6 Avant 3.0L Quattro S-Line Le-Mans.

Its fully loaded with all the toys like driver and passenger memory seats, rearview reversing camera etc etc... 

Bet of all I managed to buy it for about £4k less than its market value, thanks to an impatient dealership who just wanted to get it off their forecourt. 

It has been part-exchanged for a brand new car, and the dealership wasnt an Audi dealer so they just wanted it gone. I saw it, test drove it, made a silly offer and they accepted!

Once ive had it for a while, i'll write a review, but so far, very pleased!!

 

My recent experience/review of the AA breakdown service

The other day i was driving along and my temperature gauge shot up so i stopped, popped the bonnet (hood) and sure enough clouds of steam were coming out - 'not good' I thought so called the AA.

I was told by the AA operator that all the AA men were busy so they would send a "local approved agent".
40mins later a guy arrived with a tow truck. I explained what had happened, and he started to take a look. This is where the fun started...

Given that it was a dark, moonless night, one of the most vital bits of equipment for a mechanic to carry would surely be a big powerful torch - But not this guy - the torch he had looked like one of those lights the doctor uses to look in your eyes to see if you're dead - not much light, and certainly not much use!

So by the dim light of his pencil torch he proceeded to look to see how much water was I had left... good plan, but he looked in the screen wash bottle and told me i had plenty of water left so there couldnt be a water leak! i didnt even comment....

It was at this point I started to realise what I was dealing with here... this guy obviously was not a mechanic, and had no intention of or ability to repair my car. No, his sole objective was to load my car onto the back of his truck and drop me off at the garage so that he could move onto his next breakdown. Obviosuly the AA's locally approved agents are simply paid by the number of cars they recover and not the number they fix!

So thats what we did. we loaded the car up and began the slow drive home....

Since i was pretty sure the problem was a simple issue with a water hose, i had the car dropped to my house, and when i eventually got rid of the tow truck guy, i called the AA and told them exactly what i thought of their incompetent "approved agent". I also insisted that they send one of their trained AA staff to diagnose the fault the next following morning in the light of day (a sunday) after all, the AA boast on their website that they fix one car every 12 seconds, and i pay my membership feed to have the car looked at by a trained mechanic not some local bloke with a tow truck!

So the following day at 10am i got a call from a lost AA man. He was trying to locate my house...conversation went a bit like this:

AA: "Hello im having problems finding your house"

Me: "ok where are you now?"

AA: "Road xyz... Southampton," 

Me: "ok, we i'm in Kent.... over 100 miles away..."

AA: "Oh...." 

So not only do they send untrained incompetent 'local agents', when they actually do send a proper AA man, they send him to an address i've not lived at for over 5 years!! great...

So my review of the AA - not worth the money. i've cancelled my direct debit, and they wont be seeing another penny from me again!!

Door handle broke :(

Went to get out the car, and "Crack"!! a loud noice came from the drivers side interior door handle.

Not really sure what happened, but now the door handle is all floppy and the only way to open the door is from the outside.. very embarrasing!

So what can i do? if i take the car to BMW, i know they're going to charge a small fortune to fix it - dfont fancy that, so been searching the web for anyone else with the same problem.

So, has anyone else got a floppy door handle on their BMW E46 convertible? if you have and you know how to fix it, i'd be very greatful!!

Summer is here!! ideal convertible weather.. or is it?

This hot weather is great isnt it!? thermometer on the car has been showing 27degrees+ on a regular basis, ideal weather for getting the roof off the old BMW..

Ive had the convertible BMW now for over 3 years. E46 330cd M-Sport, Black Saphire with black leather. Its my first convertible, and also my first BWM. Before owning a a convertible i always used to look at other convertible drivers and wonder why they didnt have thier roof off on hot sunny days... now i know why!

The only draw back about driving a convertible seems to be when you get stuck in traffic jams. With the sun blazing down, the air con just isnt strong enough to keep me cool. I end up having to decide weather to continue to "look cool" with the roof down, or actully stay cool by putting the roof back up!