Just returned from holiday to South of France (Grimaud) in my i4. Clocked up around 2200 miles door to door, so virtually doubled mileage on car. Purchased the car in March 2024.
Glad to report not a single issue with the car. To be honest, I have not had any real issues with the car since purchase, so I think I have a good one. It is always a bit of a lottery with any new car as to whether it is a ‘lemon’ or not.
I had the front ppf’d shortly after purchase and the guy said the car had a good paint job which was reassuring having read about bubbling etc. only issue I had was some water ingress into the footwell from the door, but the local dealer soon sorted it out.
So main observations can be summarised as follows:
Only minor disaster is that I curbed my rear wheel, but it is fixable. Was worried car might be vandalised but this was unfounded and careful where we parked it.
Glad to report not a single issue with the car. To be honest, I have not had any real issues with the car since purchase, so I think I have a good one. It is always a bit of a lottery with any new car as to whether it is a ‘lemon’ or not.
I had the front ppf’d shortly after purchase and the guy said the car had a good paint job which was reassuring having read about bubbling etc. only issue I had was some water ingress into the footwell from the door, but the local dealer soon sorted it out.
So main observations can be summarised as follows:
- Everyone loves the car! Young and old French people alike wanted to take pictures and said how nice it looks. Even in St Tropez where there are plenty of Porsches , Ferraris, Maseratis and Lambo’s, everyone loved the Emira! The best one happened when a nice convertible Porsche was driving past us on the other side of the road and the look on the girl’s face driving it was priceless. She mouthed ‘wow’ when she saw the Emira.
- I have the Seneca blue with full black pack and I must say it looks even better in the sunlight of SofF. It was my first choice of colour when ordering but then I had a wobble and thought is the colour too ‘shouty’ as I am not the hey look at me sort of guy, but I went with it and very glad I did.
- On the way down we went via Grenoble so we could do the Route Napoleon - popular driving route through southern Alps. The car handled the twists and turns with ease and it was a joy to drive. I used the Sport mode and the only issue I had was with the engine not moving up and down gears quickly enough in some of the twistier sections. With hindsight I should have used the paddles.
- It is very economical and quiet on the motorways in Tour mode. When cruising around 85mph I was getting around 36mpg. When cruising around 90+ I was getting around 34mpg.
- In Sport mode it still sounds quite throaty.
- Good aircon
- The satnav is a nightmare - not intuitive. I had problems inputting destinations in Uk. You have to enter destination details carefully and include spaces in post code etc. in France I could never get it to pick up my destination despite entering the details in various different ways. We had to use google maps on mobile phone instead. I tried entering the post code first and last after the address but it never came up with the correct address. If anyone can enlighten me on this re Using in France, I would appreciate it.
- Wish the sat nav would show the current speed limit as when driving unknown roads it would really help
- The radio reception is poor. In other cars I have always been able to pick up the local Riviera Radio and it would come up with the name of the station which you could store, but I could only just connect to it and as the signal was weak the name of the station did not appear.
- I found the seats reasonably comfortable, although not sure my wife would agree. We took three days to drive down , but returned in two days spending around 8/9 hours in the car each day. We last drove down in my Jaguar XF which is like an armchair and so not comparable to the Emira. Personally, I would still like a sportier seat that hugs me more, but I guess they wanted it to fit a wide variety of shapes and sizes, hence how it is.
- We got a reasonable amount of luggage in the car. We managed to fit two carry on type suit cases behind each seat and a rucksack in between, along with luggage in boot. Obviously, due to heat in boot, we did not put anything in it that would be affected by the heat. We are not very tall which helped with fitting the luggage in the cabin.
- Managed to get from Grimaud to Calais on two tanks of petrol - just. Had only 50km range left when reached channel tunnel.
- I love the Emira front window. It gives a great view of the road and surrounding area.
- The cruise control worked well on the motorway. I disliked the fact when driving around town that if you increased the speed when in cruise control it would go up by 5mph but on the motorway this proved useful. I have just about mastered being able to increase or decrease it by 1mph, by lingering on the button. Still not as intuitive as other cruise controls.
Only minor disaster is that I curbed my rear wheel, but it is fixable. Was worried car might be vandalised but this was unfounded and careful where we parked it.
