Re: S4

[John Cunningham <johnc@together.net>]

Fringe:

Fringe Ryder wrote:

> 1) Nobody mistakes Americans,  or any other group, for uniformly buying a
> single type of car.  Sure, Americans may buy mostly automatics, but we're

I think you read too far into my remarks... I didn't say anything about 'single
type of car', of course as the richest guys in this neck of the solar system we
buy more sports cars than anybody too.  But you are mistaken if you think that
mass auto manufacturers (not specialty sports car mfrs.) don't perceive America as
mainly an automatic market, and a softer handling market, especially for 'luxury
models' (and that is where the industry places Audi products).  Examples:  Audi
sent us very few V8's with manuals, Audi detuned the old big S4 suspension because
customers didn't really want it (although in typical American fashion they still
all needed to think that they had the 'Cool Sport Model') etc. You said it, we buy
mostly autos, so they make and send lots of autos, and in the process, sometimes
soften the car up while they are at it.

> 2) Low-end torque is, IMO, MUCH better than HP for commuting. Here are my

Didn't say it wasn't, I agree, that's why the BMW 'e' motors were really nice
drivers, even though they weren't the 'sport' models.  I am not one of those
arguing in this thread that HP is always king. one of the great things about my A4
(1.8T) is that Audi has done such a nice job pumping up the low end that it
doesn't drive like a typical 4I.  Yay torque, rah rah.

The one back-to-original-topic caveat to this is that one might make a reasonable
argument that the S models are the sport performance models and so should be tuned
higher, and that the typical buyer, like many listers who modify their cars, is
seeking to sacrifice comfort for a performance edge.

:-)

JC