C55 AMG v Audi S4

[gIzzE]

The Audi, like most Audis, rides as though the shock absorbers are filled with hardening cement.

Go C55, I had the C32 AMG which was fun, but that V8 is just very special.

It's not just that, it fails in every single area.

When people said the engine was in front of the front axle I thought they were joking, meaning it understeers a bit like all Audis do.
THEY WEREN'T!!!
There is a massive heavy V8 plonked 100% in front of the front axle, and bugger me can you feel it too!!
The whole point of the S4 is the Quattro, but you never get to use it because the car understeers well before the benefits of the 4WD system comes into play, you have to fight the car round corners at any sort of speed.
There is a road near me I know well which is only about 2 miles long but has some great sweeping corners and adverse cambers on it, in the M3 I can average 78mph in the wet and 89mph in the dry, in the S4 I could not get above 76mph, wet or dry, didn't matter, the car just wouldn't allow it.
I changed the anti roll bars to try and get rid of the ridiculous understeer, it helped a little but not enough.

So handling is not great, no problem, treat it like a fast motorway mile muncher.

But you can't!

The gearing is all wrong, it is a 4.2 V8, it could have 3 gears and still cruise at 85mph only doing 1200rpm, but the gearing is set up for 0-60mph times, it is actually a pretty slow car so they have set the gears up to make the figures on paper look better, the final drive is 2.91. Yeah it pulls hard to start off with but then sitting at 85mph it is revving its nuts off doing around 3800rpm and 18mpg.
The auto has a 2.3 final drive and sits at around 2000rpm at 85mph and is doing a far more respectable 26mpg.

The other problem with the gearing is it makes round town work a real ball ache, you are constantly swapping cogs between 1st and second and it soon gets tiring. The clutch is seriously heavy and all three pedals are different heights from each other, this is due to some law suit taken out against Audi in the 80s, they design their pedals now so no one can say they hit the 'gas' by mistake.
This means that if you set your seat up to be comfy for the gas it is a bit too far forward for the brake, and far too far forward for the clutch, and if you're in traffic or round town this can give you cramp in the shin. I had to pull over a few times on the M25 and get out due to this and others have said the same. The pedals are also offset to the right on UK cars, so you twist your kness right slightly to compensate, however the footrest is only 1" from the clutch, so to be able to press it down you have to twist your foot to make sure you don't catch the footrest, so you are completely twisted round and it is not a comfy ride.

You then have the suspension, as said above, it is extremely hard and crashy, which you could live with if it handled well, but it doesn't. Coming from an M3 CSL it felt a harder ride, and the CSL really is a track car, but the BMW was far more comfy day to day.

I do 40k miles a year so I am sat on the motorway, I should have bought the auto, if I had I might have actually liked the car a bit, but in manual guise it failed on every single level, it didn't do anything well at all. We used to fight over who had to take it and who got to take the little 1 series M-Sport, so after a couple of months we took a hit and sold it.
Funnily enough the guy who bought it was also a BMW owner, he kept it only 3 weeks before dumping it and swapped it for a 'much better handling ML320cdi' His words not mine.

You have to be a real Audi fan to like the S4 imho, and not really have had any experience of what a proper car should handle like.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

The V8 S4 wasn't well received. It was powerful, but just didn't seem special.

It sounds like modding is your partner's thing, and if it is there are few cars more tunable than the B5 S4 (or RS4 if budget allows).

 

[Doodle]

You have some valid points on the S4 gizze, but I think you're being overly critical for the sake of a good story. I had one last year, and the handling was nowhere near as bad as you make out (I did have the RS4 rear ARB)... given that I have a Civic FD2 I had a very good comparison of "proper handling"

I agree the manual gearing is a bit short but even with a tweaked engine I still managed mid-20's on a fast motorway cruise.

Strangely enough, the chap who bought mine off me was trading from an R32, he has very recently traded up to a B5 RS4 as he got an offer he couldn't refuse. I don't blame him, they are something very special.

 

[gIzzE]

I was not being over critical, I really did think it failed in every department, other than looks, which I still love today and they still make me look when I see one of the road....

And the interior was quite nice too....

If it was a car I was going to potter round in and only do 12k miles a year in I might have looked at it very differently, but I was using it every day and things started to niggle pretty quickly.
Did you use the DIS to work out your consumption or work it out from refills?
My DIS used to read 22/23 average, but I only ever got 240 miles between fill ups putting 60 litres in, which is actually 18mpg. Sat at 86mph it used to read 23mpg, so again, 18 something in reality.
Problem was I was also in my buying season, so on the road every other day the month I picked it up, doing around 250 each day and 800 odd miles a week, so not only did I notice the £800 card bill for fuel at the end of the month it also gave me plenty of time to start getting seriously frustrated with the niggles above. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't really know? You could argue that most people wouldn't experience that, or you could argue it really does get you to see the car for what it really was.

Also, it wasn't that fast, using an AP22 I struggled to get to 60mph in under 6 seconds, my mapped 123d did it in 6.3 seconds, and the mapped 535d would do it in 5.6 seconds.
I swapped the S4 for a 335i sport touring and that was a completely different ball game, handling to die for, fastest car I have ever owned (when mapped) and would get to 60 in 4.7 seconds every time and it returned 32mpg doing the same journeys and 26mpg round town.
Considering you can now buy a 2007 335i coupe with 25k miles on it for £13k I just can't see why anyone would buy an S4.

Just want to add, the new S4 I adore, I was seriously impressed with it and it is a car I would own, with the DSG box and the far better chassis with a slight rwd bias it really is very impressive.
I love Audis and have owned 13 in 13 years, normally always have one on the drive, but the B6 S4 was a pig.

 

[JamesCB]

S4/RS4 estates are some of the coolest cars on the road imo. So subtly smart and such excellent engines as well.

 

[gIzzE]

I loved the B5 S4, and adored the B5 RS4, but the 4.2 V8 just didn't cut it when it came to power, weight and actual performance.
The new 3.0 supercharged is a peach though and right back on track.

 

[mer190]

its a well known fact that the 414BHP the V8 RS4 is supposed to make was an Audi typo! LOL.

I've yet to come across a V8 RS4 owner who when having rr their car the vehicle made the factory power figure - my car 9yrs on prior to its remap a few months back made 390BHP!

However, they aren't exactly slow especially coupled with the quattro but to say the handling of a B7 RS4 is not also up to scratch is stretching it a bit.

The S4 is no comparison to the RS4.

 

[Doodle]

Your economy was definitely worse then chap, I rarely paid any attention to the DIS but I was getting 280 miles to a tank, normally a 55l fill up. Mine was also significantly faster than that, quite happily giving RS4's a run for their money in a straight line. Ok, so I had a remap and full Milltek (so 370bhp) but yours sounds especially slow? I'm wondering if you got a bit of a Friday afternoon car perhaps? From what you've said, it was clearly the wrong car for the job if you were doing that many miles.

For me, owning the S4 was no easy choice, I'd had an S6 a few years previous that was a total dog (In 5 months it spent 6 weeks NOT in the workshop).

The 335i is definitely a world apart, and is on my consideration list. By the time the B7 came out, the S4 V8 was dead and buried, but comparing it with the B6 isn't really fair as the 3series is significantly newer. The irony is that I can only have the E92 coupe, as the B pillar on the saloon/touring is too intrusive and rubs on my shoulder, and the A pillar curves too low, making it a chore to get in/out. It's a major step back from the E46.

 

[SportsCoupeRich]

The 4.2 v8 is a peach in my s5.....

 

[Deleted member 37751]

The M3 is one of the most compliant and comfortable road cars you can buy, the suspension set up handles the poorer UK road surfaces with aplomb, you can easily sit and do 10000 miles in one sitting

I would imagine 5% of M3s have seen a track, and it is always people who have never owned them that bring the track thing up as if it is a nagative, the fact a manufacturer has managed to make a car that is comfy for 40k road miles a year and can take on Porsches etc. on a track should really only be praised.

I spent the day with the heads of Mercedes back in 2002 I think it was, and we got talking about cars, it was amazing how many of them owned M cars, in Germany there is not the rivalry between brands like there is here, there seems to be a respect and appreciation for other marques when there is justification for it. They seem to be car fans, not brand fanboys like we tend to get over here.

That is your opinion.....
I've driven both the M3 and the C55 and I would prefer the C55, purely on a comfort basis. I'm not keen on the ride of the M3 and no amount of pontificating will change that.
All these so called experts on these matters try to tell you which is best. Only the person driving or owning both can tell you that.
Most of my good friends wouldn't look at a Merc because of the 'old man' image, so that's why they drive BMWs....
If you were to ask me M5 or E55/63, that would be a different matter- the M5 is in the top 3 cars that I have driven and that includes Bentleys, Astons etc....

 

[BenzedUP]

I've owned both - M3 and now C55 AMG and the C55 wins hands down, everything you want from a car and it's classy and very rare! everything an M3 isnt.

Coming from an E46 M3 cab I felt the C55 handled better and felt more stable at high speed!

I've never driven a Audi S4 so I can't comment but I doubt it's as good as the C55 or the M3!

RS4 and M3 are great cars but sorry they are no AMG!

YouTube - TopGear Audi S4 vs BMW M3
this is what Top gear made of both cars, (M3 and S4)

It all comes down to personal prefference at the end of the day!

 

[flango]

I have driven back to back C55, RS4, M3(CSL) & M5(E60) around the ring and I'll give you my verdict purely based on performance, handling, power, grip and sheer exhilaration, so the results.

1. M5
2. M3
3. C55
4. RS4

The C55 just does not have the poise and the agility of the others it's good but not that good, the RS4 just has so much wrong with it gearbox is poor, handling at best average, M5 just an awesome car and they don't use it as the Ring Taxi for nothing but it managed a whole 3.8 mpg during the time I had it on track.

The pick of the bunch by an absolute mile is the BMW M3 CSL cannot be beaten and is an absolute peach and a dream to drive.

Edit: Should have said based on OP comparison absolutely no question C55 by a mile.

 

[gIzzE]

However, they aren't exactly slow especially coupled with the quattro but to say the handling of a B7 RS4 is not also up to scratch is stretching it a bit.

I think the RS4 is awesome, feels pretty well balanced and is a joy to drive, however that should have worn the S4 badge and the RS4 should have been a supercharged version of that fsi engine with a true 450bhp.
All imho.

 

[gIzzE]

That is your opinion.....
I've driven both the M3 and the C55 and I would prefer the C55, purely on a comfort basis. I'm not keen on the ride of the M3 and no amount of pontificating will change that.
All these so called experts on these matters try to tell you which is best. Only the person driving or owning both can tell you that.
Most of my good friends wouldn't look at a Merc because of the 'old man' image, so that's why they drive BMWs....
If you were to ask me M5 or E55/63, that would be a different matter- the M5 is in the top 3 cars that I have driven and that includes Bentleys, Astons etc....

Hold on, I never said I would take an M3 over the C55, I did at the time, but now I am 38 and would prefer a C63 estate over an M3.

All I was referring to was the M3 is only better if you track it.

I do think the C55 is more comfy than the M3, but I also think the M3 is a supremely comfy car, it eats the motorway miles like not many cars can, and will easily see 30mpg doing so too.

Now, E AMG vs M5??
Would be an E55 or E63 for me everytime, I love the M5 and I love the SMG gearbox, but I don't like them together.
If I was buying a fast BMW estate it would be an Alpina B5s touring, just sublime.

 

[gIzzE]

Coming from an E46 M3 cab I felt the C55 handled better and felt more stable at high speed!

I would hope so too, the cab is not exactly known for it handling and is worlds apart from the coupe.

 

[flango]

If I was buying a fast BMW estate it would be an Alpina B5s touring, just sublime.

Now that is a good call, stunning car

 

[gIzzE]

The pick of the bunch by an absolute mile is the BMW M3 CSL cannot be beaten and is an absolute peach and a dream to drive.

It is the only car I regret selling, I had a bad month and it cost me £7000 so I decided to get out, but looking back I could have probably got near what I sold it for almost 3 years later.

I still miss it now....

I will definitely have another one to keep for fundays and Sundays when I can afford to have it sat there for 50 weeks of the year, it is already an automobile classic.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

If the op would care to clean up how much they are spending, then we could all know exactly which M5/M3/C55/E55/E63/RS4/S4/C63 etc we are talking about, because I'm losing track
In my opinion-
£10k M3
£15k C55
£20k M5
£25k RS4
£30k E63
Anything above these price-wise; get a C63. Job done.

 

[flango]

Stunning car you had looks glorious It's amazing how many people just don't appreciate the difference between a CSL and a standard M3, the weight difference alone is phenomenal it's a bit like the Porsche 911 and 911 GT3 scenario. Never owned a CSL but have driven and Instructed in loads of them a true racing car that is useable on the road. I'm just contemplating what to buy next year as a weekend car and seriously thinking of a Noble at the moment although so much choice,I'm like a kid in a sweet shop

 

[gIzzE]

When I had the CSL I was still into spending all my money on cars, unfortunately over the last few years life has got in the way and other things like mortgage, pension, holidays, daughter talking about Uni in 2 years, etc. etc. have got in the way.

I would love another at some point, but it will be a while I feel.