A4 vs. S4/S6 (amendment)

[Igor Kessel <four_rings@worldnet.att.net>]

I received a little avalanche of private responses and would like to
thank all of you for the kind words. It looks like my basic assessment
of both cars was in line with the other folks' observations.

For the fairness' sake I would like to point out that my A4 with the
factory Sport suspension will run circles around my soft sprung heavy
and pathetically wallowing S6 and will outbrake it easily too.

Either way one either has to spend $2500-$3k on upgrading the A4
performance to the level of the stock S6 or $2500-$3k on upgrading the
S6 suspension and brakes to the level of the stock A4 1.8TQ Sport. 

For those who live in the snow belt here's another point to consider.
In the winter I run all my cars on the dedicated snow rubber. My
personal favourite is the Finnish-made Nokia.
1. The A4 is very good in snow as anyone would expect from a quattro.
Although it would slip up sometimes in as little as 10-20mm of snow, it
would quickly regain traction.
2. The S6 is much more confident in snow than the A4. My guess is - the
heavier car has better traction, everything else being equal.
3. The 200 would beat both cars in snow as it has the ABS-off switch and
the manual differential lock switch. In fact, my '89 200TQ on Hakkas was
the best snow car that I have ever driven, this side of the Russian-made
Ural 6x6 heavy military truck.

-- 
Igor Kessel
Two turbo quattros.