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Was musing today after seeing the driver of a very recent model Audi (the ones with the IMHO hugely redundant permanently ablaze sidelights) impatiently tailgating another car in a busy built up area, that for me many Audi drivers would once have been at the helms of BMWs, in other words, the perfect mode of transport for the last word in arrogance, selfishness and boorish behaviour. For example, about 15 years ago I watched incredulously as a Beemer pursued a Volvo on the M40, full beam on, horn blaring constantly, even though there was congestion ahead and the traffic was rapidly slowing to a halt. I realise that I am being very unfair on the majority of perfectly reasonable Audi drivers, but I am wondering if any other forum members have similar prejudices, and if so, have they changed over the years?
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You get tailgated....it's almost always a dark coloured Audi !
It's just the natural order of things.
Ted
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I was tailgate by a 3-series Compact today. I reckon this is because the driver is permanantly enraged that they get the mickey taken for not being able to afford a real BMW.
They had their headlights on in full sunshine too, perhaps an extention of the belief that the sun shines out of their backside and therefore the same for their car.
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Ooooh, Is it possible to be "marqueist" as opposed to racist ?
Personally, I think Audis are beautiful cars and would like to own one.
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And some people think Jordan is beautiful. Hmm.
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Well you know how the saying goes.
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always subjective, of course, but if your motor has to have a big mouth on the front, give me Audi's deep look any day to, say, Peugeot's wide sweep
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Yeah but those people are called Jordan :-)
Meanwhile... possibly Volvo as they really have changed? They are no longer "God's waiting room" or "The last car you'll ever buy".
Of course I'm only saying that 'cos I rather like the C30 :-)
JH
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Can't agree with you there, MrTee, with all due respect. I used to have a lot of time for Audis: understated, yet had a certain presence on the road. Now however, IMHO, they're bloated, vulgar things. Happy to be accused of being marqueist, if this is what that is.
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IIRC I posted something similar a year or so back, either as a comment to an existing post or as a topic in its own right, that Audis seem to be leading the pack in the stakes that you mention - tailgating, arrogance etc. Not sure why, I've got a lot of time for the A6 Avant, but I would hope that if I ever owned one I wouldn't fall under the evil spell :-)
If it's any consolation, they are as common as muck here in Austria, and they all seem to be driven at speeds in excess of that which common sense dictates. And in Germany, they're twice as bad as in the UK.
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Funny, I was driving with a colleague last week who also pointed out that the cars flying down the outside lane of the Autobahn with the left indicator going these days always seem to be Audis, mainly A6s.
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I think that Vauxhall/Opel is a much maligned brand. They have got the reputation of being "not good to drive" (as if that is a sin). However they are comfortable, well-equipped and cheap to run.
For people who just want a decent car, and don't live and breathe motoring, they can be a very good choice. But the way that car magazines treat them, you'd think that they we hideous.
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I think that Vauxhall/Opel is a much maligned brand
Any car company that has engines snapping camshafts as 1.4 Astras do, is incompetent from a technical viewpoint and deserves everything they get - like Rover and headgasket rtoblems.. Or Mercedes and injector problems or the design of the original A class.
Last edited by: madf on Sun 11 Apr 10 at 22:22
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I've never had a Vauxhall in 40 years of owning cars - but that's not through prejudice, just that despite trying them on many occasions I've always ended up preferring something else. I don'think Vauxhalls have enough USPs to be a tempting prospect when buying new, although as they depreciate fast they make very sensible secondhand buys.
I do think GM Europe need to rethink the way they test cars before putting them into production: there's the camshaft problem noted by Madf and on other threads. and I simply don't believe anyone could have properly tested the so-called Easytronic transmission which was fitted to the Corsa which I recently had as a courtesy car.
The lurches accompanying each gear-change would disgrace a 17-year-old learner.
Slightly flippantly as I've no scientific evidence, but at a roundabout when the way is clear but the dopey driver in front doesn't move - why is (s)he always in a Vauxhall?
Last edited by: Avant on Sun 11 Apr 10 at 23:00
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I have to admit that the worst car I've ever had was a Vauxhall Vectra, my first company car in 1996 which managed 44 miles before its first breakdown and it was downhill from then on.
It did about 30K miles a year and so was serviced every 3 to 4 months (every 9K miles IIRC) and still never made it between services without an unscheduled visit to a dealer, all of whom were variously rude or incompetent. I've never had a Vauxhall since and I never will.
The comments on Audi's are amusing though, I replaced the aforementioned Vectra with an A4 B5 and I was once asked by someone whether it was a substitute for the BMW I really wanted (it wasn't), in fact it was probably the nicest car I've ever had and showed me the different (then) between marques.
I'd add to the comments on tailgating dark Audis that most of them are (from my experience) lower powered variants in black (because that doesn't cost extra....).
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Regarding personal experiences on Vauxhall, I have to say that I had one for four years, and SWMBO also had one for 15 years, and they were both good as gold. Other people were not so lucky, it seems. I'll just have to accept that I'm outnumbered, I guess! :-)
While I'm battling against the majority, I must admit to being a big fan of VW/Audi. I love their technology, and I reckon this "aggressive driver" thing is overrated. You are still more likely to find a BMW on your rear bumper than an Audi - it's just that you notice it more when an Audi does it. It's still more of a novelty. With beemers it's just par for the course.
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>> Any car company that has engines snapping camshafts as 1.4 Astras do
I think you'll find it was the 1.2 engine that was fitted to the Corsa.
That engine was made by Suzuki btw. So much for Japanese reliability!
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Most maligned marque - Ted
