A6 2.8 Quattro manual shift quality
 

First Quattro - Absolutely brilliant, love it!!!

However, its' very difficult to get a smooth gear change (car is a manual, or 'stick shift'), when changing gear, the change is very difficult to get smooth, like there is a lot of slack in the drive train. Is this due to the 4wd, or just the fact that it;s afairly powerful engine. I've checked out the drivetrain and all the joints are good - there is a fair amount of backlash in the rear diff, but I don't think it;s excesive compared to my bmw. It's a 2000 model and has 75k miles. You can make it smooth when driving really carefully or accelerating hard but it's a real pain when driving around town. I've noticed that the engine decelerates very quickly when the power is lifted to change and it's this you have to avoid to make it smooth.
Any thoughts???