The Road to Change - Part 1

Perhaps it was my move to Queensland and my need to negotiate different roads; perhaps it was simply the passing of time and my subsequent sampling of an even wider diversity of cars. Both are partial causes, but I think the biggest factor was my fiancé Georgina buying that damn' Lexus.

I liked the car from the first moment that I drove it out of the caryard to sample its performance. It was smooth, quiet, well built and well designed, relatively luxurious in internal features (though the absence of the trip computer still irks) and was demonstrably safe with its airbag and laser-welded oh-so-stiff body. I knew that on paper it would even be relatively economical for a large car - but I simply never guessed how impressed I'd become with that '91 LS400.

In fact, it was my firm belief that on the 20-kilometre stretch of narrow, winding, undulating and - in places - rough country bitumen that I negotiate to get to the nearest urban centre from my home, I'd find that the big ol' softy-sprung Lexus would fall into a giant heap.

Like, my own '95 Audi S4 would just kill it around the corners - what with its constant four-wheel drive and turbo power....

The Barge

So I wordlessly sneered at the Lexus each time I pedalled it up and down the mountain - its ride absorbing with ease the bumps and dips and potholes. Sure, it held the road all right, but just start pushing it and the original 220,000km old suspension would have me slithering around like I was on cross-plies.

Wouldn't it?

Well, no.

I started driving the LS400 harder and harder, going into the tight corners with a trace of understeer, balancing it on the throttle and then squeezing the power down from the apex onwards. The car heeled over but the small high profile 205/65 Dunlop D8 Sport tyres held on with grim determination, all the time feeding back through the steering and the seat - and the very feel of the car - all that was happening. For a luxury barge, it seemed to show a helluva lot of potential as a driver's car...

Hmmph, I thought. She's pretty good - for an old softy, anyway.

My own car was showing signs of damper wear, so - even with just under 100,000km on the odometer - it could be forgiven for skipping around a bit on those challenging roads. But still, with the Audi's four-wheel drive and awesome mid-range turbo torque, it could race up the hills at a pace that would leave the LS400 breathless...

But then one day I followed Georgina down the hill, she in the Lexus and I behind the wheel of the oh-so-capable Audi.

It took only a few kilometres before I reached for the mobile to ring her.

"What are you trying to do?" I yelled into the phone. "Kill yourself? Why the hell are you going so damn fast?"

Georgina was genuinely puzzled. "Er, this is as fast as I drive every day," she said, adding, "And you drive this fast when you're in my car, as well...."

Could that really be so? Watching the leaning Lexus bobbing along in front, long-travel suspension seeming to move up and down 20cm or more over those rough road undulations, I was puzzled. In the Audi I was hanging on for dear life, the steering wriggling and kicking-back violently, the front pattering around with bouncing understeer as the tightly-spaced bitumen corrugations and slapdash patches were encountered. Not only was I trying my damnest to pick the cornering lines, I was also concentrating mightily so I'd even get the car around the corners...

So when I was next driving the Lexus (alone!) I decided to get down the hill at the same speed I'd watched Georgina driving.

But it never even felt like I was driving fast - you could feel the suspension working hard (with all that wonderful feedback) but as for feeling fast, not at all.

This was intolerable. My expensive sports sedan Audi being hard to drive down the sort of winding country road for which it was made - more difficult than a one-third price Lexus!? I resolved to immediately get new springs and dampers installed - to return it forthwith to its rightful place as head honcho in the carport...

Dislikes? People who have read my new car tests will be aware that I can always find at least some faults with every car. So what do I dislike about the 1991 Lexus LS400? Of course there are things. When you're driving really fast - eg 140 km/h down a twisting road - the steering is too slow. You notice it because you need to wind on lock a little earlier than you really should. The large steering wheel doesn't help here, either. The suspension on smooth roads feels a little soft - when swinging the car around a tight, slow bend and kicking the tail out with a little power oversteer, it tends to lurch rather than go into the slide completely progressively. Curiously, it feels better on rough roads. The same suspension softness can also be felt at high speeds - in some undulating situations the body can develop float. A silly thing: the vanity mirrors on the insides of the sun visors have no covers, so sometimes there are distracting reflections when the visors are down. Hmm, what else? Well, the styling has none of the elegance of a contemporary BMW - or the feline grace of a Jaguar. The seats lack lateral support and don't immediately feel comfortable. And oh yes - the rear legroom is poor for a car of this size.

New Audi Suspension

With Bilstein dampers and Eibach springs installed the S4 was much better - and lower as well, with about 40mm out of the normally very tall ride height.

Ha! I thought. Now we'll see!

The Audi handled far better - the skipping around of the front-end was gone, although the steering kickback was still terrible. In fact, driving the car faster than was previously possible, the steering kickback was even worse! Literally, two tight sets of knuckles were needed to keep it on line, especially around a particular downhill left-hander with numerous patches on the inside edge.

But the real 'test corner' on that particular road is a large dipping left-hander. You approach a brow of a hill, able to see in the distance what appears to be your road continuing nearly straight. But when you arrive at the crest you suddenly realise that the road drops away sharply in an off-camber sweep. The blacktop that you previously sighted is in fact another road joining from the right... Your visual cues suddenly altered, you wind on left-hand lock. The suspension is at full droop from the sudden drop as you descend into the valley - only to encounter a series of undulations and patched bitumen that determinedly try to throw the car off-line. The road keeps sweeping left, compressing the suspension as you steeply climb out of the gully, crossing another series of challenging sharp-pitched off-camber bumps.

It is a killer of a corner - one that tests the suspension to an inordinate degree. (It's also exactly the sort of corner that you would never, ever find on a racetrack!)

Through this corner I've seen cars wallowing and bouncing sideways at 80 km/h - but the Lexus could do a safe and easy 100 klicks through 'the big dipper'.

Even more interesting was the way in which the Lexus suspension talked back all the time through steering and seat. Power through this extraordinarily difficult corner and you could almost hear the LS400 saying, "OK I am keeping it altogether but you do realise that I am trying very hard...? Are you listening? I am just starting to understeer, you do realise that...?"

Apply a bit more power and the car would go on, "All right, so I have stopped understeering now. But you do realise that I am starting to oversteer? That's alright, is it? You don't mind me doing that? If you took away some of the power I'd go back to being neutral - you do understand that, don't you...?"

Dampers tired, the Audi was pushing to get through the same corner at 95 km/h...

Aaa-ha, but what about with them fixed? You want the bad news? I could now do 110 - but even at 100 km/h in the Audi it was fearsomely hard work, the car feeling unsettled but simultaneously and horribly uncommunicative. But what was worse is that in cornering extremis initially the outside mudflaps dragged on the ground, but then - terribly - on the sudden dips the undercar skid plates hit the bitumen!

The new and lower - and much firmer - suspension simply wasn't giving the ride height needed through this oh-so-tough corner...

So yes, now the Audi was a bit faster than the dead standard Lexus. But it was also more difficult, more uncomfortable, there was far less communication - and the Audi was scraping its body on the ground! So was it better than the LS400 through this one hell corner to end all corners? Even with the new suspension in place, not from my perspective...

Of course, drive the road after a shower of rain and the Audi would walk all over the LS400. In terms of grip, nothing beats constant four-wheel drive. Nothing. And an awful lot of the Lexus's communication skills disappear in the wet - it seems to have a gleeful bent to go into taily powerslides with little warning... perhaps it's the bald outside edge of the tyres...

But having seen many accidents on this stretch of road, including a fatal one, and - despite what I have been saying - if the conditions are less than perfect, I actually drive the road slowly and carefully. But that doesn't change the fact that in slippery conditions the Audi is light years ahead of the Lexus. 'Specially when the '91 LS400 doesn't have traction control...

Decisions...

So what to do? I could replace the Audi's brand new Eibachs with something stiffer and perhaps taller, I could get a steering damper custom-made to mightily beef up the standard unit, and I could look at changing the (factory!) wheel offset to try to reduce the scrub radius that I was sure was contributing to the poor steering. So I'd end up with a car that rode even more firmly - but also with no guarantee that it would be better on a dry road than the Lexus...

And it wasn't just the handling, either! The Lexus is smoother and quieter than the Audi, has much better steering, and is easier to place on the road. (Despite both being large cars, the Lexus always shrinks on the twisty bits while the Audi always continues to feel just like a big car. As I have previously written, you simply can never drive it by the fingertips.) But the Audi has much better performance, vastly bigger and more effective brakes, and better seats and interior equipment.

But, whichever way I look at it, Georgina's much cheaper Lexus is a better car - at least for the sort of trips that I do - than my own machine. And that includes freeway and city traffic as well as that climb to the mountain....

Then I had another input from an unexpected source - a current ZR Celica which I had on test. Through 'the big dipper' it was stable and composed - nonchalant, almost. And talkative to the driver, too. Not as verbose as the Lexus - more like, chatty.

Now a good small car will always beat a good big car through a series of corners - you can pick a better line when the car is narrower - but here was this 'hairdresser's' Celica just cruising through the same corner and at the same pace that caused the Audi to totally lose composure! Despite the fact that I have had many other cars unsettled by this corner - including most notably the ghastly (and almost mute) current model Volvo S60 T5 - it was another lesson in my growing realisation of the Audi's basic incompetence in this sort of demanding condition.

Hmmm, what to do... what to do...

I started to think: goodbye Audi.

Of course, I'll now get a host of emails from Audi owners saying that I am being terribly unfair condemning a car on the basis of its performance on one stretch of difficult road. (And another lot of emails from people wondering how I can understand a car talking Japanese!) But the road I am describing is a section of blacktop that I drive nearly every day - and if I'd enjoy doing that more in a Lexus (or perhaps a BMW 540i, or perhaps a Jaguar), then what was I doing in an Audi? For even at quite low speeds, the LS400 was more pleasant and rewarding - except for a short stretch of ultra-steep passing lane. On that section of (nearly straight) road, a bit of boost made all of the difference.

As I write, the Audi is in hospital getting a leaking fuel line replaced - and I am waiting two weeks for the replacement part from Germany. Audi are paying for it, just as in the last 80,000km they have had to pay for a replacement water pump, replacement fan viscous coupling, and replacement steering damper. (And yes, and even with the brand new damper, the steering still kicked back atrociously over hard-driven corner bumps.) In that same period I've paid for new springs and dampers - and I think, based on the slight whines developing from the 6-speed gearbox, that I might be potentially paying for a gearbox rebuild in the next 12 months or so...

Hmmmmmmm.

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