odds, ends, and hello

[4ringer]

Hello, and Greetings from very hot southern CA. I've been lurking for a while, mostly because I've been too busy driving the R8 to post...
took delivery of blue/tan/rtronic/everythingelse on March 28; turned 10K miles yesterday....
Anyone else notice that when you sit in traffic on a hot [105F] day the temp readout spikes dramatically? Mine hit 128 on the 101 yesterday @5:30......
I think the temp sensor must be near one of the front radiators or plumbing..
and when you're in manual, without the sport mode on, the rtronic will upshift for you when you hit redline, just in case you're too slow or busy with whatever.. nice feature, actually......

Car's working well as a daily driver.. no complaints at all. I alternate it with a couple of others, but it's getting first bid most mornings.

Found the fuel door issue late one night, and after a frustrating 15 minutes, got it open. Plainly caused by binding up the rubber connector for the fuel cap in the hinge mechanism; just need to be careful when you close the door.

That's the whole list of problems thus far....

Road trips: LA-Phoenix to catch a late season Suns-Mavs game with one of my sons...LA-Las Vegas twice just because I can...back and forth to Sierras for some early season trout fishing...then shipped the car to Virginia so my other son could drive it with me home from boarding school back to CA.[I promised him I would if he made straight A's. It worked.] Amazing trip, incredible drive...stats:
VA-CA door to door:
Total mileage: 2783.8 miles
elapsed time: 42 hours 46 minutes
Avg speed 65 mph
mileage 19.7 mpg [!!!!]

last day we had to get home, had been delayed by terrible weather [Thunder, torrential rains, and hail] across mid-west. Left western Kansas at dawn, and drove:
1353.8 miles
19 hours 33 minutes
69.5 MPH average
20.6 mpg [!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Hit the limiter a couple of times in Utah...wow.

more later, got to go drive!

[wedouglas]

Awesome. You're driving more than me! I took deliver end of April and have about 3500 on it now. Great car.

[randombloke]

20.6mpg - wish I could get that on a regular basis

10k miles on an r-tronic? How many clutches have you had so far?

[resonate]

US R8's have limiters? If so, at what mph?

[800]

my rtronics doesn't upshift in manual or may be i am always eager to change befoe the cut off. (I hate the rtronics changing gear for me.)

limiter? I got to 300-ish the other day. the limiter was seeing the fuel guage...

[swansailor]

my rtronics doesn't upshift in manual or may be i am always eager to change befoe the cut off. (I hate the rtronics changing gear for me.)

limiter? I got to 300-ish the other day. the limiter was seeing the fuel guage...

In manual normal mode my r-tronic upshifts automatically when the engine reaches the rev limit. In manual sport mode it does not ..the revs "bounce" at the limit (due to the rev limiter) but there is no upshift. This behavior is consistent with what the manual says. I never drive in automatic mode so I have no idea where the shifts occur.

As far as I know there is no speed limiter in the US ... but I have not driven fast enough to find out (max I have done is 110 mph)

[4ringer]

Edmunds just drove an R8 cross country; got 19.7 mpg over about 2900 miles, or 1/10 mpg different from what I got for about the same miles. good reading....

[800]

tried today. it upshift when not in sport mode

[randombloke]

I hate the rtronics changing gear for me.

Agree, manual should be manual not manual unless the r-tronic thinks it knows best - pity kickdown still works in sport.

[r8jon]

Get 19.6 ave, done 11,500 miles now since march 10th (even with it off the road for 5 weeks)