[s-cars] 2003 S6 or 2004/05 S4??

[Brett Dikeman]

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 11:06 AM, JC <jc at j2c3.com> wrote:

> When I had both the 'nice' C5 and 'beater' Type 44 in the drive at the
> same time I ended up preferring the driving experience of the old
> weather-worn 200TQA 9 times out of 10.  C3/C4 are just more "mechanical" or
> "solid" feeling and driver-feedback oriented.

A few months ago I drove my folks' C6 A6 to the train station in the
snow.  I couldn't feel or tell what the car was going to do in the
slightest, where the limits were.  It was like driving a video game.
The steering is horrible- not only is there no feel, but it is speed
sensitive in either assist levels or actual ratio (or both..I can't
remember.  It's even worse than the usual steer-tronic or whatever
they call it.)  It wasn't clear when ESP was doing anything.  ESP is
nice, but it can't be a 'hand of god' when you go into a corner 10mph
faster than conditions warrant.  Where was (limit)-15%? I had no idea.

In the 200q20v in snow, you can tell when the front is outta gas
because vibration from the wheel changes, as does tension/torque
required to turn in.  There is a ton of by-the-butt feeling if the
back is getting ready to go. Hard to explain, but it just
feels...nervous.  ABS gives a ton of pedal feedback- very easy to do a
lazy man's threshold braking test.

Brett