urS4/S6 or A4 ?

[Brett Dikeman]

At 11:37 AM -0700 4/15/02, Mike Faulhaber wrote:
>Realizing that I'm flirting with a WOB (at the least a
>massively OT) rating here

Not at all.  It's about Audis, right?  Read the very first message in
the archives, from when the quattro list was 10 guys.

>To me, the urS# series is a very compelling package
>(especially the charasmatic I-5 and overall
>competence), but while I've had plenty of experience
>with complex and expensive cars, I get the sense that
>the these cars are particularly expensive to maintain.
>Pluses: Road eater.  Performance.  Relatively
>uncommon.  Minuses: Potential for high ownership
>costs.  Relatively uncommon.
>
>The choice of the A4q 1.8T is an easy one.  It's
>balanced and tunable, and quite contemporary in the
>parts and equipment department.  Pluses: Efficient,
>attractive package.  Performance potential.
>Relatively common.  Minuses:  A bit cramped.  Not
>particulary fast out of the box.  Relatively common.
>
>Most of my driving right now is 300+ miles roundtrip
>blasts at least once per week, but eventually that
>will settle down, if not change to more occassional
>trips.  This car will not be a typical commuter
>appliance.

Okay, the S-car is a full size car, and if you're going to be doing a
lot of highway driving, sure...its a monster on the highway; the big
20vts are, same as the V8q.  The A4 will yield better mileage, so it
would be smarter in that department.

Initial purchase price is obviously lower on the older cars; that
means less $ to financing, so the TOTAL cost of the car goes down
quite a bit due to that alone

As for tuning, the S-car will yield 280-ish hp with $500-ish for a
chip.  Full RS2 package is something like a few grand for turbo, EM,
injectors, ECU, cams, etc, and will yield somewhere between 300 and
330hp and insane amounts of torque...at levels A4 owners can only
dream about; APR and others will charge a VERY hefty arm+leg to get
to that level, and there will be SERIOUS reliability concerns.

One thing: especially with a chip, you -must- upgrade the brakes if
it's an S-car; that car is woefully underbraked with the G60s.
BIRA.org makes brackets for monobloc calipers that will cost you a
-fraction- of what the various A4/S4 kits cost...well under $1500 for
-everything-, and you can do the work in a day or two easy yourself.

A third option is to get a 200q20v.  They're at bargain basement
prices(more money for toys or even less $ spent on financing), are
nimbler in the twisties than either UrS, and parts availability is
pretty good, or at least as good as the S-car.  The AAN is a better
revision of the 20vt...however, but it isn't night and day, so who
wants to pay 2-3x in terms of initial purchase price for that?  Not
I.  Plus, it's lighter.  I have no trouble keeping up with unchipped
S4tts, and I can beat the pants off the TT's.  Older M3's?  No
worries.

The S-cars have refinements in many areas throuhout, but they're just
too heavy, and FAR too expensive for what you get.  S-car owners seem
to be collectively sniffing the same glue when it comes to asking
prices...I've seen people asking $10k over blue book value...and S6
prices and S4tt prices are getting uncomfortably close.  Pretty
insane when a car half the age, half the mileage(or less on both
categories) is within a few thou of what you're asking for a 7 year
old car.  Book value on an S6 avant with 60k is something like $16k,
and prices are well above that(WELL above that.)  Apparently, a lot
are on the market, too, and I have a feeling S-car owners are about
to get a rude surprise.

B
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