Another S4 joining the ranks soon, maybe....

nky_84

nky_84

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Hi guys,

Currently finalising a deal with a main dealer. Price had been all agreed but it turns out the car doesn't have Sports diff, even though they said it did and its down on the spec sheet :-(.

I live in the country and have done a fair bit of sprint and hillclimb motorsport, so its an option i would probably notice. It also concerns me that its on most peoples wishlists and could affect resale value and ease of sale.

Retrofit doesnt sound like a cost effective option so they are going to come back to me with a possible discount. Sports diff is £620 in the book. It feels like i would actually be prepared to pay more for than this for a 2nd hand car with, rather than without. I doubt they are going to discount by the full £620 but i think thats what it will at least take to keep me in the sale.

It does have a few other options such as Super sports seats, active cruise, advance key, heated front and rear seats, lane departure, power tailgate and drive select, so fairly well specced car. Albeit not necessarily options i would have chosen ahead of some others.

Other issue i have with the car are the Magna red seats, ive yet to see them in the flesh and some of the pictures make them look a bit "halfords". What is the general consensus on this colour option?

Cheers,
Nick
 
Hi mate, I've had mine for about 6 weeks now and absolutely love it. I bought mine second hand though and my main thing was to get the sports diff and there only appeared to be 3 for Alsace on trader with it at the time. I looked at 1 a few years back with the half red half black interior and tbh it wasn't for me. I do normally like red leather and I think if it was all red would look nice but with the red/black it seems to take something away from it. As for the sports diff, I haven't driven 1 without it but I can confirm that an s4 with a diff handles unbelievably!

Ryan
 
Sports diff was one of my "must have's" and after 9 months of looking at the used market I must have seen only 2 or 3 with it. Unfortunately those didn't have some of the other options I wanted so let them go. In the end I gave up and ordered a new S5. That was the only way I managed to get a car which meets my requirements 100%.

I test drove a lot of cars with and without sports diff and agree with Ryan, it does transform the handling.
 
hmm, i havent driven one with but never really pushed the test drive very hard to find out if the standard car fell short. Do you notice it with day to day driving or is it just when you are pushing on? I'm wondering how much placebo effect is going on here too?! In what way does it transform the handling?

The video of chris harris trying to get one to oversteer and failing badly on the first few goes has me less convinced that its worth having.
 
Managed to spin mine.
Wet, driver aids turned off, accelerated out of a second gear bend and ended up facing the wrong way. They do oversteer if needed!!
 
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audi upgrades
I had a 2009 S-Tronic with ADS and the sports diff but now drive a 2011 6MT without the ADS and sports diff.
The main reason for the change was that I always wanted a manual (as I prefer rowing through the gears) but could never find one with all the options I desired and I started to get transmission issues that I knew would end up being costly.
I ended up getting a pretty much standard 6MT knowing fine well that I wanted to mod to stage 2 so a new clutch/flywheel was always going to be needed. I have added H&R ARB's front and back along with uprated Motorsport034 drop-links and I actually prefer the steering feel much more now that with my 2009 model.
I could notice a difference between the sports diff equipped model and the one I currently drive but only when I really push the car and for my driving style it is not missed one bit at all. It is a nice option to have but not a deal breaker for me!
I much prefer the way my car drives and feels compared to the sports diff equipped model I had previously.
In an ideal world (for me), it would have been 6MT, sports diff and uprated ARB's but I'll just have to make do with what I have now.

Hope that helps.
 
i'm usually a manual over auto guy, but was really impressed with the S-Tronic but it does worry how complicated and expensive it is if it all goes wrong!

Good effort to spin your S4, i wonder if it would have done it without the diff. I've had a few tail out moments under power in the S3 but its so unpredictable that i dont bother trying to force it very often. Its fun in the snow at low speed though!

What about the handling improvement did you notice? The reduced understeer on turn in or is it more on power? I realise its never going to be super sharp, ive got a classic mini on 7.5inch super soft slicks for that :)
 
nky_84 said:
i'm usually a manual over auto guy, but was really impressed with the S-Tronic but it does worry how complicated and expensive it is if it all goes wrong!

Good effort to spin your S4, i wonder if it would have done it without the diff. I've had a few tail out moments under power in the S3 but its so unpredictable that i dont bother trying to force it very often. Its fun in the snow at low speed though!

What about the handling improvement did you notice? The reduced understeer on turn in or is it more on power? I realise its never going to be super sharp, ive got a classic mini on 7.5inch super soft slicks for that :)
Click to expand...
Basically, it rotates the back end to point in the direction of the wheels.
I had only ever had high power fwd cars before so I was used to turning in sharp and riding the under steer out of the corner with the front wheels spinning.
It was a combination of poor technique (I had the front wheels pointing too far into the corner), all esp/asr turned off, wet roads and I had just gone stage 2!!

These cars corner better if you drive them around the corner instead of chucking them into it.
 
IME ya don't need the Sports diff to get some rear end action :sign omg:

I have a 6MT S4 with eibach springs & Eibach uprated rear ARB

If I switch off all the electronic aids it's very easy to provoke the rear end (especially in this weather)
even with everything switched on i can feel the rear wanting to steer when i push it that way
 
With or without the diff they are a great car but an S4 without magma/black super sports seats is not worth having!
 
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nk just my pennies worth mate. My last car , B8 A4 3ltr Tdi ended up getting all the "aids" like lane departure, active cruise and collision mitigation switched off. Personally I found them a little too intrusive. This S4 has the mechanical bits and not the electronic things. I think these options are much more useful. And a lot more fun. We all like different things.
 
Active cruise, i think i will get on with but agree the lane departure thing doesnt sound like i would ever use or want. How does it work, does it make you indicate everytime you change lanes etc?
 
I have all the aids as I got the tech pack. I like the lane departure but only for long motorway drives especially late at night. On mine you can adjust how early it responds and the vibration. It will actually steer you back into the lane. I find it makes the steering feel too light for normal driving so don't use it much. If you indicate it doesn't interfere but this means you have to indicate every time you change lanes.
 
What Scott says makes sense for night motorway driving. Otherwise it just intrudes all the time to me. Active cruise? I found that you find yourself getting slowed down a lot because of the way it works. Not a fan. Collision mitigation system? Do you guys get this too? No ones mentioned it. I found it an absolute pain. One day I was approaching a car who was turning right up ahead in front 100 mtrs or so of me, I was heading down a slope, he was on the upslope side. Cars coming our way. He had a gap coming up. I could see it. So could he. The "system" couldn't. Just before he went into the gap to turn, my brakes came on out of the blue. Took me by surprise. Few more things like that happened. Like the others, it got switched off. Its personal, I prefer the diff etc to those things. Had them, tried them.
 
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I use ACC selectively. The worst aspect of it is if I'm on the motorway in the left lane and approaching a car which is in the middle lane (apparently some cars are physically unable to move into the left lane and have to stay in the middle lane), I have to choose between undertaking or moving over to the right to overtake. Now whilst I always feel like undertaking (perfectly safe since as I wrote, the car in the middle lane is not physically able to move to the left) I don't because it is illegal. So I have to move two lanes to the right to overtake, and of course it detects the car in the middle lane and so applies the brakes! Like @chucky1 the braking guard is often an irritation for me, however I cannot truly say that there was NO need for it to brake. I am just thankful that one day there may be a real situation where the braking guard saves me from a crash.

I quite like lane assist. It forces me to signal before changing lanes and that's not a bad thing. I also have side assist and the flashing yellow lights are a comforting reassurance that the car is helping me to avoid changing lanes too near to another car. I do find the blind spots on my S5 works than my last car. The best aid to me however is the headlight assist. It works well and it means that when I'm driving fast at night on rural roads I can fully concentrate on steering, and in general it reacts to the need to dim the lights quicker than I can.

Back to the sports diff, that is reassuring for me too. 15 years ago I wrote off a Subaru WRX and ended in hospital. I moved to Audi so that I could have 'proper' 4WD. The sports diff is an extension of that - it gives me confidence to power through corners in the wet. Not even a Nissan GT-R gave me that (but I guess that was due to the run-flat tyres which can lose grip too easily).
 
You can override the acc applying the brakes by lightly pressing the throttle.
I never use it though, brake assist and side assist are also turned off.
 
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so you cant run ACC without the active bit then?

I can tell the lane assist thing is going to **** me off having to indicate to change lanes on a dead motorway!

Can you switch it round so the button turns it on, rather than off?
 
nky_84 said:
so you cant run ACC without the active bit then?

I can tell the lane assist thing is going to **** me off having to indicate to change lanes on a dead motorway!

Can you switch it round so the button turns it on, rather than off?
Click to expand...
Not that I have found yet. My sensor has been disturbed and its £315 to have it realigned. So I have no cruise control at the moment
 
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Dippy mentioned something I wish I had. High beam assist. Wouldn't mind finding out if I can retrofit this. I doubt it. Had it on a BMW a couple of cars back and found it worked really well. From approaching cars and even those moments when your lights are reflecting on huge highway signs you were able to maintain solid concentration without thinking about dipping your lights. I'm sure some systems work better than others but I would doubt the Audi one would be much different from the one I had before. This function was not part of our tech pack, but an option separate to that. I would certainly pick it given the opportunity. And no, as far as I know if you have ACC thats the system you have, and thats the way it works.
 
nky_84 said:
I can tell the lane assist thing is going to **** me off having to indicate to change lanes on a dead motorway!
Click to expand...
What do you mean by 'dead'? No cars? Why would you need to change lanes then? Or for that matter why stay in lane at all?

chucky1 said:
High beam assist. Wouldn't mind finding out if I can retrofit this.
Click to expand...
It might be possible. I noticed that US owners do a lot of retrofitting. It wouldn't surprise me if all you need to do is fit the camera and configure it to make the system work.
 
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Ta Dippy I will have a look into this. I've no doubt it will be prohibitively expensive though, if at all possible here.
 
Sorry to stray away from your thread nky. Dippy, have done some searching here. No go. Way too expensive to get the correct mirror etc. That little bit of gizmo just isn't in mine. Next time.
 
Picked up this car today. Just the 400mile drive back home to get to grips with the beast!

ACC made the motorway miles a breeze and averaged 32mpg with a few blasts! The last 150miles were A road which brought the average down to 28 which I thought was still pretty good considering the pace!

Pics to follow shortly!

One quick question for power tailgate folks. Is it meant to properly close when you push the button? This one only seems to go down, engage the catch but not fully shut.

Cheers,
Nick
 
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Excellent nky. You will love this. Wooohoooo!!!
 
First pic at the dealer :):blackrs4:
 

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Well a few more days now spent with the S4 and i'm loving it so far :)

Some initial queries that i have:
  • Do you have to rip cd's to laptop and then SD card in order to load into jukebox?
  • Is there anyway to enable audi connected services etc via your phone, or do you have to have simcard in the car (dont think i have this feature)
  • what is the difference between efficiency and comfort on the ADS?
  • Still having problems with the tailgate, so going to have to take it to local dealer :-(
  • There seems to be a "kickdown switch" at the bottom of the accelerator pedal, is it only full throttle if this is all the way down too?
  • is HHA worth the effort and cost to retrofit? likewise rearview camera
  • I believe lane assist uses a camera, anyway to get this to output to the screen?

In answer to questions above, lane assist is disabled by default, so it doesnt get in the way unless you actually want it. I find the ACC a little sensitive but great feature overall. The seats are growing on my very quickly :) im not missing the sports diff either tbh, its not that sort of car to me, whereas advanced key i use every day and love the convenience!
 
audi upgrades
I just used an SD to get my music into the jukebox and that was slow enough, so if it were possible to rip from CDs then I'd guess that it would be painfully slow.

I am fairly sure that Audi connect is only available with the integrated SIM slot.

The ADS settings are listed in the manual but IIRC efficiency also has gearbox changes to put it into the higher gears more than comfort does. I have rarely used efficiency mode. I read somewhere that someone had and found negligible difference in fuel efficiency.

I believe that there is what's called a HHA 'lite' which can be set via VCDS - should come up in a google search.

Rear camera is a popular retrofit and I'd recommend it. I guess you'd need to judge the cost (there are companies who will do it for you or at least supply the parts) vs how good/bad you are at reverse parking :)
 
ADS setting from the manual -



I haven't used the 'Efficiency' mode in ADS since the purchase of my S4
Wouldn't have bought a S4 if I was going to worry about mpg TBH
Reading the S3 owners mpg figures, the S4 does similar mpg figures which is good enough for me
 
Thanks Dippy,

Seems its possible to rip from CD if you enable via VCDS but SD card it is for now.

Yeah, i had a look in the manual and it wasnt very clear. I tried Efficiency mode the other day and it seemed to just change very early and stay in a low gear rather than changing down when pushing on. Not even tried comfort yet.

Will take a look at HHA Lite.

There didn't seem to be any 2013ish b8.5's with rear camera and i read somewhere that it wasnt possible to spec parking advanced on them but im guessing its still possible to retrofit? I've read a few guides but none of them seem to apply to my setup so still pretty unclear on costs and what is required.
 
audi upgrades
@nky_84 I have a collection of brochure pdfs from when I was car hunting. I just checked and option 7X8 parking system advanced with reversing camera is in all the brochures back to July 2009. It had to be specified in conjunction with a tech package. So assuming that you do have MMI then it should be retrofitable.
 
Some interior pics as thats easier to keep clean in this weather!
Also, anyone know if there is a way to get SG5's to interface via AMI cable. Only seems to do charging and not communicating :-(.













 
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