Audi R8 not driving right

I wonder if anyone has had a similar issue. I chatted to the head tech at my supplying dealer (not yet an R8 centre) at the weekend, and took him out with me, and he can feel the problem too... but after checking TSBs and speaking to the group's R8 centre, has no idea what the problem is...

Anyway, it started a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that the car seemed to feel 'buffeted', and originally put it down to the strong winds we had been getting. When they lessened, the problem was still there, and I focused on what it was doing, and discovered that the car was 'pulling', rather than being 'blown around'.

The first thing I did was check the tyres, and found that 1 of the tyres was seriously under pressure. I pumped it up, and parked up at home, but by the next day the tyre was 85% flat.

I replaced the tyre, and found it has a screw embedded in the treads.

A day or so later, to my surprise, I notice that the car is still not behaving properly. When I accelerate, the car seems to pull. Sometimes harder than others - sometimes just a little drift, other times it seems to dive. Worse still, when you back off the gas again, it corrects itself... so you can (by playing with the throttle) get the car to shimmy around. Obviously this has totally upset the balance of the car, and it really doesn't feel right. It is at its worst (of course) when making high-rev, high-speed gear changes, particularly on flowing roads - as when you back off the throttle to clutch, and then stamp on the gas again, the car ducks and dives around and unsettles itself. Not good.

I rechecked the tyre pressures at the dealership on Saturday, and they were out by maybe 2 psi in 1 tyre. We corrected this, and went for a drive, and it is the same as ever. You can feel it from the passenger seat nearly as much as when driving.

As the car will drive perfectly straight when you have neutral throttle input, I have effectively ruled out (in my mind) suspension, tracking, steering and (now) tyres. I'm thinking 'drivetrain' or the quattro / diffs - but VAGCOM threw up zero errors...

Audi want my car in later this week. They've offered to collect it tomorrow and replace with an A4, which I've declined... they can damn well do a bit better than that, if my £85k sports car is off the road, I'm not driving around in some £25k saloon car as a replacement.

So... has anyone else experienced similar? Please don't tell me it is a characteristic of the car!!! I truly hope not, but I'm certain it isn't, since I would have noticed in the first 500 miles, and would have felt the same problem at Rockingham when I drove them around the track for 1/2 a day.

I'm wondering,
when was the last time you fueled up?
it could be that bad fuel was put in your car without you knowing,
that could definitely upset the balance and the nature of your car, especially during acceleration...
if this is the case, you would probably have to siphon out the gas and refuel, but that also causes your ecu you act up and may need resetting.

good luck.

Interesting theory, but I've refuelled probably 3 or 4 times since the problem started (I fill the tank on a weekly basis) so its unlikely to be the cause.

I would also expect fuelling problems to give a dodgy ride on neutral throttle, and for the problem to be felt through the 'engine' rather than what feels like the chasis swaying...

interesting left-field idea, though...
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