Sound Bytes: Hear The Audi R8 V12TDI Up Close And Personal

Not the best mic setup. Sounded very mechanical (Gear whine, etc) and low on exhaust growl. I hope they change their mind and put at least a V8 TDI in the R8.

It looks like the V12 TDI is a no go for now, the V8 TDI however is set to come to the US.

Damn, I was hoping that they had decided to put the V12 TDI in this beauty! The V8 TDI has a lot more torque than the petrol 4.2 V8, but it generates only 300 hp.

The startup sound from outside the car sounds clattery. However, I was surprised that all the other sounds on this video clip were so quiet.

And what do you mean by that? Do you even know what qualities it has or doesn't, and who are you to judge what defines these qualities? Since you are anti-Audi bias (from all your posts), not sure what put-down you are trying to get at.

And Toyota's performance Hybrids sound like vacuum cleaners. Your pont?

-point.

Honestly... it sounds freakin' sweet to me. Not sexy like a V8, but just beastly.

You paint with a very broad brush, my friend.

Although I haven't the time to compare every engine configuration with real data, I am certain you will find that, on a per-horsepower basis, German engines pollute no more than any other country's engines. The real question you seem to be asking is, why do Germans make such high performance engines?

And the question i want to ask you is, why are you trolling on an auto enthusiast site if all you ever do is brag about Japan & Toyota and bitch about any other country or brand. Basta!

I'm waiting to swap my petrol Q7 for the diesel when it comes out at the end of the year. But to be honest though sound bite is not the best quality, I still detect some diesel clatter when the R8 is idling. Try it again and listen carefully you will here it.

You always will hear it, but nowadays it is so much less that if you stand behind a car, rather than in front of it by the engine, you can't hear the rattle at all.

For all the amazing power, torque, and engineering of this monster of an engine, I can't say it sounds very good, or healthy. It sounds like a truck, or forks in a blender. Go to YouTube and look for the exhaust note of an S5.... THAT is what Audi should have targeted for this diesel.

You try to make a standard twelve-cylinder engine, let alone a diesel V12, sound like a V8.

From my experience, the recorded sound of diesels running is far worse than the real world experience. It's as if the muffled sounds are muted out, leaving only the clankity-clank noise. I've seen this with the BMW 123d, the VW TDI, and this video as well. Judging from these recordings, they are all more harsh sounding than my '06 Jetta TDI which is not even possible considering common-rail technology versus my dated unit injection TDI.

Either way (even as I hate to say it), I agree with GoOBama. Any 12-cylinder, whether a diesel or a Viper gas guzzler or a Bentley gas guzzler, is an absolute waste of a precious, natural, strategic resource. In fact, if one is only performing personal transportation, anything above four cylinders should be illegal. I mean, we're now looking at reduction of petroleum fuels as the only real way to survive as a free world, or we can keep pretending that buying all this petroleum from unstable countries is okay as long as we get to go fast. I mean--how imporant is it for us to all have sports cars? Is it worth the slow destruction of our economy?