New arrival!

[Chiefbadger]

Well after many months of waiting the big day arrived today. Really impressed with Salisbury Audi. Fantastic service from Dave Clark.

Anyway, didn't get the chance for many pics with the kids and wife in tow, but the obligatory embarrassing 'unveil' pic below!

First impressions are that the A6 just feels enormous and the S4 feels just right! Loving the engine and already experienced the dual personality having been stuck in traffic for 90min on the way home before unloading and getting out for a quick blast over Devils Dyke.

Some of the plastics do feel a generation behind the a6, so my wife is not quite as enthusiastic as I am, but all the bits that count are better!

 

[Paul @ Unit 9 Remaps]

Really nice these' awesome colour too, I prefer the 4 over 6 even in r and RS form

 

[Duggy72]

Nice one. The fastest colour too

 

[Sandra]

Love the car. Feel free to leave a comment on dealership review section. Enjoy the car. x

 

[chucky1]

These things are a blast mate. Congrats. Good looker.

 

[Av4nt]

Very nice Congrats

 

[Scott.T]

Congrats
But if your locsl yo Devils Dyke why Salisbury and not caffyns at Eastbourne/Worthing or the guys in Crawley ?

 

[Chiefbadger]

Congrats
But if your locsl yo Devils Dyke why Salisbury and not caffyns at Eastbourne/Worthing or the guys in Crawley ?

Would definitely have made life easier but they couldn't get close enough to the deal I got with Salisbury. Made a great weekend of it with a day at Beaulieu on Sunday and a trip to Stonehenge yesterday though. Nice part of the world!!

 

[jdp1962]

Caffyns Eastbourne.....Shudder!

 

[Scott.T]

Caffyns Eastbourne.....Shudder!

Tell me more......

 

[opelfruit]

My one word of advice; careful and watch the speedo. These things hit legal limits very quick but they way they do it isn't brutal, so before you realise it you could quite easily get into licence loosing territory. I've had a few brown trouser moments where I've though "oops, brake".

Personally, as a family wagon it's a great car and ticks all the boxes with younger kids so I'm sure your missus and lads will love it.


I can also recommend Diono luxury car seat protection covers, they sit between the kids seat and the leather perfectly and stop and imprints going on the leather. They catch crumbs, crisps (and dairylea sandwiches!) too.

 

[jdp1962]

Tell me more......

Although I live in S E London, I have family in and around Eastbourne. A few years back, I killed two birds with one stone by booking my B6 into Caffyns for a service while visiting my mum.
When I picked it up and looked it over, I realised the air filter hadn't been changed. When I asked why, after a lot of red faces and shuffling around, they admitted me they only had one filter, and they'd fitted it to the car in the next bay to mine.

 

[Chiefbadger]

My one word of advice; careful and watch the speedo. These things hit legal limits very quick but they way they do it isn't brutal, so before you realise it you could quite easily get into licence loosing territory. I've had a few brown trouser moments where I've though "oops, brake".

Personally, as a family wagon it's a great car and ticks all the boxes with younger kids so I'm sure your missus and lads will love it.


I can also recommend Diono luxury car seat protection covers, they sit between the kids seat and the leather perfectly and stop and imprints going on the leather. They catch crumbs, crisps (and dairylea sandwiches!) too.

Agree with you on the speed factor. I'm loving how agile it feels after the a6 though and having never owned a Quattro before, the traction away from junctions etc is just fantastic. I'm loving it and my wife has already stopped whining about the load cover not being automatic, so we're making progress!

Thanks for the suggestion on the seat covers. I will have a look at them.

My boys are both car mad, so it's going down very well with them. They just keep yelling 'faster Daddy faster' so nice to know they're definitely mine

 

[Bristle Hound]

Well after many months of waiting the big day arrived today. Really impressed with Salisbury Audi. Fantastic service from Dave Clark.

Anyway, didn't get the chance for many pics with the kids and wife in tow, but the obligatory embarrassing 'unveil' pic below!

First impressions are that the A6 just feels enormous and the S4 feels just right! Loving the engine and already experienced the dual personality having been stuck in traffic for 90min on the way home before unloading and getting out for a quick blast over Devils Dyke.

Some of the plastics do feel a generation behind the a6, so my wife is not quite as enthusiastic as I am, but all the bits that count are better! View attachment 68149

@Chiefbadger - Nice!
Do like that colour
Need more pics my friend

 

[Chiefbadger]

Still need to sort out some more pics, but really starting to bond with the S4. There are some little things moving from the A6 that make a real difference, some hoped for and expected, some, a pleasant surprise.

Cheers to opelfruit for the Diono car seat cover suggestion, they turned up yesterday so will get them in place to save the back seats a bit of torment. Also ordered the armrest tidy thing from eBay that Bristle Hound spotted.

So, nice things I've found in the change over from A6:

The engine (every aspect!!)
General surefootedness of the 4wd
Turning circle (trying to get the A6 round a carpark was just hideous!)
Interior space (have adjusted really quickly to the slightly smaller interior and actually feel really comfortable)
Parking (the car actually fits within the lines on our road - the A6 stuck out a good few inches)
Electric seats (lovely luxury - can't believe how much they were as an option in the a6!)

Most of all though, I'm enjoying driving again. My wife has even started smiling at how accelerative the car feels when joining from a slip road etx and the kids love it.

The not so good: (most of which make me sound like a grandad and are very petty!)

The arm rest and cup holders (the A6 romps home with the win here) and also the ashtray actually. The A6 came without the smoking pack which meant a really vast (rubber lined) loose change dumping ground which I liked.
Rear load cover not being electric
No clever false boot floor

The only thing I really miss from the A6 though is the lighting pack. The door trim/handles etc all used to light up and the puddle lights were lovely.

So, all in all I'm a very happy boy.

I've also been making some enquiries about the CREC engine as although I have no immediate plans to do anything, the car feels like it might be a keeper so always good to get researching!

So far I've found the following:
MRC haven't cracked the ECU yet and have said it could be a 'long' time before they do.

ABT are insanely expensive but effectively you are buying a complete ECU which in turn means that (again, apparently) the TD1 code isn't an issue. If the car really is a keeper, this might be the route I go down in the next year or so . . . If I can get over the eye watering price and somehow convince my wife that it's not better spent on something far more sensible.

 

[Bristle Hound]

Still need to sort out some more pics, but really starting to bond with the S4. There are some little things moving from the A6 that make a real difference, some hoped for and expected, some, a pleasant surprise.

Cheers to opelfruit for the Diono car seat cover suggestion, they turned up yesterday so will get them in place to save the back seats a bit of torment. Also ordered the armrest tidy thing from eBay that Bristle Hound spotted.

So, nice things I've found in the change over from A6:

The engine (every aspect!!)
General surefootedness of the 4wd
Turning circle (trying to get the A6 round a carpark was just hideous!)
Interior space (have adjusted really quickly to the slightly smaller interior and actually feel really comfortable)
Parking (the car actually fits within the lines on our road - the A6 stuck out a good few inches)
Electric seats (lovely luxury - can't believe how much they were as an option in the a6!)

Most of all though, I'm enjoying driving again. My wife has even started smiling at how accelerative the car feels when joining from a slip road etx and the kids love it.

The not so good: (most of which make me sound like a grandad and are very petty!)

The arm rest and cup holders (the A6 romps home with the win here) and also the ashtray actually. The A6 came without the smoking pack which meant a really vast (rubber lined) loose change dumping ground which I liked.
Rear load cover not being electric
No clever false boot floor

The only thing I really miss from the A6 though is the lighting pack. The door trim/handles etc all used to light up and the puddle lights were lovely.

So, all in all I'm a very happy boy.

I've also been making some enquiries about the CREC engine as although I have no immediate plans to do anything, the car feels like it might be a keeper so always good to get researching!

So far I've found the following:
MRC haven't cracked the ECU yet and have said it could be a 'long' time before they do.

ABT are insanely expensive but effectively you are buying a complete ECU which in turn means that (again, apparently) the TD1 code isn't an issue. If the car really is a keeper, this might be the route I go down in the next year or so . . . If I can get over the eye watering price and somehow convince my wife that it's not better spent on something far more sensible.

Great write up & Interesting thoughts CB

 

[Dippy]

So far I've found the following:
MRC haven't cracked the ECU yet and have said it could be a 'long' time before they do.

Thanks for that update. I'm not sure if we should take 'a long time' as 'never'? I have wondered what they do to crack an ECU - I assume that it is about finding the encryption key in which case I guess it depends how much computing power they have available.

Part of me is impatient to get mine tuned, but another part of me is glad that I am forced to wait and keep my warranty for longer. I kept my B5 S4 stock for 2 years (as it was a personal import I didn't get a third year warranty) in order not to risk my warranty by having it tuned, but had no problems. I'd rather not wait 2 years with my B8, but perhaps waiting a year might be a good thing.

ABT are insanely expensive but effectively you are buying a complete ECU which in turn means that (again, apparently) the TD1 code isn't an issue.

It is interesting but aside from the cost the problem is that it doesn't take full advantage of the 3.0 TFSI engine. The whole beauty of the supercharged engine is that it only takes a smaller pulley to give a significant torque increase, and unlike with turbo engines (the B9 S4 for example), that torque increase is across the WHOLE rev range.

 

[Chiefbadger]

The exact response from MRC was:

Unfortunately development is not complete on the CREC ECUs. It is still a long way off.

I guess they might just call time on it!
Will be interesting to see whether Revo or APR have cracked it yet or are close to doing so. I haven't done any digging on this side yet.
I guess MTM is the other obvious one.

 

[Chiefbadger]

Just been doing some more reading on this and it looks like MTM might be an option. Looks like their 'piggyback' gives very similar results to ABT but at about half the price. Still a lot of money at circa £1750 but again prevents any TD1 flag apparently.

Does anyone have any experience with QS Tuning in Haywards Heath? They're just up the road from me so I might pop in at some point soon and find out a bit more.

Edited - just spotted on the QStuning website that they explicitly state 'using the M-Cantronic will not effect your warranty' which is pretty brave if it's not the case. Interesting!!

 

[Bristle Hound]

328bhp not enough for you then @Chiefbadger ? lol

 

[Chiefbadger]

Don't get me wrong. I'm a happy boy, just easily tempted by shiny things

It just seems the S4 responds so well to a little magic.

Bottom line is I can't afford it anyway so will just have to content myself with the loveliness of the standard power.

I'm just greedy

 

[Scott.T]

Just been doing some more reading on this and it looks like MTM might be an option. Looks like their 'piggyback' gives very similar results to ABT but at about half the price. Still a lot of money at circa £1750 but again prevents any TD1 flag apparently.

Does anyone have any experience with QS Tuning in Haywards Heath? They're just up the road from me so I might pop in at some point soon and find out a bit more.

Edited - just spotted on the QStuning website that they explicitly state 'using the M-Cantronic will not effect your warranty' which is pretty brave if it's not the case. Interesting!!

Not used them but heard good things from a friend in the trade, who's into modifying stuff, that used to run the workshop at Crawley Subaru.

I'd be interested in the outcome too.

 

[jdp1962]

328bhp is 72bhp more than the most I've ever had before. I'm not that bothered that the CREC engine is, thus, far, impenetrable. I don't have the testicles for 480bhp

 

[Chiefbadger]

Not used them but heard good things from a friend in the trade, who's into modifying stuff, that used to run the workshop at Crawley Subaru.

I'd be interested in the outcome too.

Sounds positive. Going to try and pop in over the next few weeks, but won't be doing anything for a good few months yet.

 

[Dippy]

The exact response from MRC was:

Unfortunately development is not complete on the CREC ECUs. It is still a long way off.

I guess they might just call time on it!
Will be interesting to see whether Revo or APR have cracked it yet or are close to doing so. I haven't done any digging on this side yet.
I guess MTM is the other obvious one.

It's probably a matter of priorities - I think MRC is still a small company and have stretched resources. I understand that APR are working on it. They are a bigger company and obviously have a bigger market in the US. The CREC engine is also available in more models in the US so I'm sure that APR will come up with a package sometime. I'll go with APR if I have to but honestly I'd prefer MRC.

 

[Dippy]

Just been doing some more reading on this and it looks like MTM might be an option. Looks like their 'piggyback' gives very similar results to ABT but at about half the price. Still a lot of money at circa £1750 but again prevents any TD1 flag apparently.

Does anyone have any experience with QS Tuning in Haywards Heath? They're just up the road from me so I might pop in at some point soon and find out a bit more.

Edited - just spotted on the QStuning website that they explicitly state 'using the M-Cantronic will not effect your warranty' which is pretty brave if it's not the case. Interesting!!

I have no direct experience but I have been interested in Audi tuning for years and can say that QST has a good reputation - it's run by a guy called Kim I think.

However I have heard some negatives about the MTM cantronic. The reason why it won't affect the warranty is precisely because it is a piggy-back unit which can be removed before taking the car to an Audi dealer for a warranty claim. Since the ECU had not been changed there is no evidence of tampering (as long as the cantronic is removed 'cleanly'). I'm not keen on this type of tuning because it works by 'fooling' the ECU. So in the case of increasing the supercharger boost pressure for example, it needs to 'break into' the wiring between the pressure sensor and the ECU, giving a lower measurement than reality. This prevents the ECU then bleeding the boost, however extra boost is no good without extra fuelling. So it then has to fool the ECU into adding more fuel. I don't know the details, just the general principle. Now whilst I have zero evidence that this can cause problems (other than the third party negatives that I have read), to me it is crude and therefore must have drawbacks to the 'proper' method of changing the settings and n-dimension maps in the ECU. I don't like the idea of protecting my warranty for 3 years only to find that there is something in this 'crude' method which increases the chance of a long-term problem which will affect the car when it is out of warranty anyway!

So far I think my philosophy might hold true: I bought my B5 S4 in 2001 shortly before production ended. I hoped that as a consequences most of the design flaws would have been fixed. This was generally true, and certainly I never needed to make a warranty claim. Now I have a 2015 S5 and although the model still in production I don't think it will last much longer now that the S4 has stopped. I hope that the engine and transmission at least is good and I'll have no need for a warranty claim so I can risk tuning it sooner. Of course at the time I didn't know that Audi had developed the new CREC engine, but I would still hope that as a development of a current engine rather than a new one it is now reliable.

I guess I'm happy to keep my warranty for the first year but will be eager to get it tuned after that. I hope that MRC produce a stage 2 package in the next 7-9 months.

 

[Dippy]

328bhp is 72bhp more than the most I've ever had before. I'm not that bothered that the CREC engine is, thus, far, impenetrable. I don't have the testicles for 480bhp

Most of the time I find the performance plenty as well. However it was with careful consideration that I chose the S5 as my new car and the tunability was a big part of my decision. I simply HAVE to get a stage 2 at some point in the future. I'll worry about the size of my testicles then.

 

[xpoweruk]

Most of us don't need 450+ horses,but the sure are allot of fun to have

 

[Scott.T]

Piggy back devices are OK as long as they interface to all the correct elements.

They have a bad reputation and earlier incarnation tended to only interfere with the boost pressure signals/control. These later evolved to also include ignition timing and fuel mixture. I would assume the very latest have the ability to change the throttle angle maps too.

One disadvantage is if there is a fuelling or boost issue the piggyback could be incorrectly reporting that all is OK. There needs to be a level of self-diagnosis in the piggyback item to enable it to relay the message correctly to the OE ECU.
This will then enable the OE ECU to kick into it's safe/limp mode to prevent any damage.
If the piggyback ECU does not have this intelligence then the car will continue to try to run normally which may lead to lean running, detonation or overboost issues.

Another question would be, during the installation or any diagnosis process how do you VCDS log a piggybacked upgrade, as the VCDS reporting would be from the OE ECU not the piggyback device, so it would be the 'fooled' parameters !!!
Additional interfaces would be needed for this logging which may not be readily available and therefore would require you to always return to the original tuner for maybe unrelated issues.

 

[Chiefbadger]

Finally got around to giving it a bit of a wash today. The interior is like a cross between a raisin/crisp factory still, but the privacy glass hides a lot of sins!

Have nearly doubled my typical monthly mileage since picking it up last month, so I guess it's a goodun!

Love how different Sepang looks in different lights.

 

[scotty76]

Looking nice @Chiefbadger ! But those kerbs and the BE alloys would have me sweating everytime I parked.

 

[Chiefbadger]

Looking nice @Chiefbadger ! But those kerbs and the BE alloys would have me sweating everytime I parked.

It certainly helps keep you on your toes when parking!! Doesn't help that my neighbour with the Mazda 6 gets in so tight, so you always think you need a bus to the kerb even when a couple of inches out!

 

[Dippy]

Out of interest @Chiefbadger do you use the parking guidelines on the screen when parallel parking (I assume you have the rear camera)?

 

[Chiefbadger]

Out of interest @Chiefbadger do you use the parking guidelines on the screen when parallel parking (I assume you have the rear camera)?

Unfortunately not! I ordered just as the my16 changes were being implemented so my original spec was adapted, but by the time I realised how cheap it would have been to add a camera, I couldn't adjust the spec.
What is interesting is that the sensors in the S4 seem far more excitable than my old A6.

 

[jdp1962]

Unfortunately not! I ordered just as the my16 changes were being implemented so my original spec was adapted, but by the time I realised how cheap it would have been to add a camera, I couldn't adjust the spec.
What is interesting is that the sensors in the S4 seem far more excitable than my old A6.

I had a similar thing with mine, with the order getting crossed up with the model year change. I have the Parking Plus with graphic display, but no camera. It's fine.

 

[Dippy]

I like having the camera view on mine especially since I agree with @Chiefbadger that the sensors do seem 'excitable' and I have trouble judging how close I am. However I don't tend to use the guidelines as I invariably end up not being as straight as if I just use the door mirrors as normal. There is a mode where the guidelines can be switched for parallel parking but I am too scared to rely on them in case I kerb a wheel, so again I rely on the door mirrors. I always planned to find time to practice using the guidelines, but its coming up to 6 months of ownership and I still haven't done it so that probably won't happen.