Brighton Laiman

Review of Audi Mission Viejo

First and foremost, I'd like to give a shout out a...

First and foremost, I'd like to give a shout out and salute to Jennifer Irving for making this past weekend rental experience happen. She's part of the marketing and PR department of this Audi dealership and does a great job of being courteous and prompt when it came to setting things up and any requests I inquired about.

You might be asking, "well shoot... how can I get my hands on a free weekend rental from Audi?!" It all started earlier in the year during a Yelp event which took place at Room & Board in Costa Mesa. Audi had a booth set up in the building during the event and a S6 convertible parked right where the entrance was. All I simply did was put my basic info down on a sheet of paper (i.e. - name, e-mail, and phone number) and threw my name into the box where they raffled off not just one, but two opportunities to rent an Audi for a weekend. Well, long story short, I forgot all about the raffle, and my girlfriend and I left a bit early to go to the mall next door. Within an hour after that, I received a call from Jennifer saying that I was one of the two people that one the raffle. Needless to say, I was very enthusiastic about the call and opportunity to finally get behind the wheel of an Audi.

Fast forwarding to this past weekend... Given the stipulation that the rental would be limited to around 250 miles, I figured using it for a San Diego trip would be the perfect opportunity to get a feel of a car. I shot Jennifer an e-mail requesting a Q5 with a pick up date of Thursday and return date of Sunday and within the hour she replied back and got everything in the books. After arriving at the dealership, my girlfriend and I went up to the receptionist (also very friendly and helpful) to pick up the car and within 15-20 minutes later, everything was all ready to go.

A sales person by the name of George offered (rather reluctantly though as his facial expression came off) to "show us" around the car and the basic functionalities. Needless to say, being a car enthusiast and tech guy, there wasn't much George said or did that I wouldn't have come across or figured out myself later on that night. Finally, before pulling out, we realized the tank wasn't filled up to the top as promised, but as soon as we mentioned it, the service department jumped right on it and came back 10 minutes later with a full tank of a gas. Kudos to them for also being on top of things in terms of service.

Now, I'm not going to go into full detail and review about my experience and thoughts on the vehicle here, especially since this review is specifically regarding to the dealership and my interaction with them, and second, that I am no Matt Farah or Jeremy Clarkson. But coming from a lineup and history of Japanese and American cars, I will say that my first experience being behind the wheel of a German vehicle was a bit different and it really does give you a sense of elitism. This coming from a Subaru STI driver, where the "bro" mentality and community is very real and acknowledging each other within each instance happens on the norm, I can say the same mentality and culture could be seen in the higher tier luxury car world. With that aside, it was a very pleasurable experience to be able to cruise down the freeway with pretty much no outside, engine, or exhaust noise infiltrating to the interior. City driving was also as enjoyable, if not better, making you feel like you're in a car commercial like the ones you see Matthew Mcconaughey do for Lincoln. All in all, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say I didn't start falling in love with it.

After this past weekend and experience, would I consider an Audi? I'm not sure what my answer would be if my experience was solely based on a typical 5-10 minute test drive, but after being able to get a feel of how life would look like with an Audi as my daily driver... I would say "most definitely."