Gadgetory

Howdy's TT sports car comes in three flavors we have the base model the TPS and now the TT RS that's the top-of-the-line fastest model and we're here looking at the 2012 Audi tt-rs the RS in the name stanza Rennsport translate that into English means racing sport the RS version the Tiki has a few different elements than the standard PT the TT RS gets a bigger engine that gets Audi's mandate a ride suspension technology standard plus we get some different appearance packages this car has this optional optic package they call it gives us the silver mirror covers you can also get carbon fiber and back here we have a fixed spoiler does away with some of that motorised elements saves a little weight which keeps true to this cars sporting team wonderful things with cabin tech lately like Google Earth integration on the navigation system but this car not so much this generation is six years old for the TT and the cabin tech is six years old as well here in the head unit we have just the stock system no upgrades and this is a basic radio it's got satellite radio it's got broadcasts it's got a CD player and according to the literature somewhere around here there's an auxilary input but I can't find it now as it is we do have a nine speaker audio system which isn't too bad but you really can't hear it very well over the sound of the engine this really aggressive engine in this car you can get an upgrade here though you can get a navigation system and that comes in a tech package just $3500 tech package that brings in a Bose audio system so an upgrade over that nine speaker system and iPod integration now you can't get iPod integration without the navigation system and the navigation system is DVD based it's six years old which isn't great sports car fans are gonna love the fact that Audi only offers one transmission with this car it's a 6-speed manual so shift your own gears it's the way it should be no DSG year dual clutch manual transmission but we also have this s button on the console which controls some of the more high-tech elements of this car for example put it in s mode and it makes the acceleration more aggressive the throttle is a little more sensitive and it also can cause the magnetic suspension that when you put it in S mode it makes the quality stiffer and handles the corners better of course on the flip side it also makes the ride a little less comfortable but this s button also controls the sport exhaust now that's another option that we have in this car $1,500 option that makes the exhaust sound more aggressive it opens up some baffles and you get this really like roaring sound which that doesn't do much for performance but it certainly makes you happy now with this small cabin you might assume the TT RS is a two-seater but I'm gonna prove it's a coupe so you can see there are back seats here but I'm gonna need a chiropractor after sitting back here and bending my head under under this low low roof you wouldn't want to sit back here for at all really ok let me get myself out of this place here as standard in the tt-rs you get these carbon-fiber engine covers not really important what's more important is you get an extra cylinder this is a 2.5 litre five-cylinder direct injection with turbo charger that's one more cylinder and point 5 liters more than the standard TT that adds up to 360 horsepower and 343 pound-feet of torque those are huge numbers for this small car so it gives it really good acceleration now you'll also notice this engine sits sideways sidesaddle usually this is a mark of a front-wheel drive car but the TT RS has Quattro all-wheel drive standard so that doesn't really matter what's more mediocre about this engine is the mileage 18 miles per gallon city 25 miles per gallon highway not great pretty average numbers but that's not really the point of this car makes of a dual purpose car this is something the MW does really well you know and this yeah leave it off sport mode in the city you can drive around drive to work every day but it doesn't work so well in this car because the suspension in non sport mode never really gets comfortable and engine always remains a little touchy a little hard to control in traffic on the fun curvy roads like I'm on right now you can really get a sense of how this car is to post the handle the places it's supposed to be and this is fun driving around yeah suspension really just handles these corners nicely and you get a nice sense of rotation in the turns but there's a couple things I don't really like about this car as far as the sports car goes one of that is the fact it's got this electric power steering system that it's not tuned all that great I don't know it the turn in isn't very tight you don't feel a lot of response like you do in the you know the best systems that I've tested this car just remains kind of fade and it doesn't have the sharp turnin that I would really want from a good steering system in a sports car and I think I'd wait till the Audi engineers have a chance to tune that a little bit better another thing I'm not crazy about is the gate on this manual transmission the gate isn't quite as tight as it could be I really want to be able to feel it's smoothly going each year but it's kind of notching and it doesn't really give me a good sense of going into each gear so ultimately what I'm feeling in the the ride here is this is an OK sports car but there's better options out there certainly less expensive ones the base price of the 2012 Audi tt-rs is fifty six thousand eight hundred fifty dollars the tech package I talked about $3500 I'm not sure I would include that because it's an old system the sport exhaust that's fun fifteen hundred dollars might as well throw that on there but ultimately I might go for a Porsche Boxster the car we just reviewed which just had a model update or wait for the model update for the TT whenever that's going to come