I raced my friends Audi S4 2005 today. We both barley have any miles on are car he had 1,200 and i have 1,700. We actually drag raced for about a 1/4 mile. The start was about the same we were head to head and then about 4 seconds later my car just flew and i was ahead by about 1 and 1/2 cars. AHHHHHHH IT WAS AMAZINGGGGGGGG!!!

Good to know. Is he a good driver? Are you? Not trying to insult anyone, I just want to know if you feel the race brought the best out of both cars.

This is a great topic. These cars are not compared as often as the MB/BMW thing and they deserve to be. Were you on a roll or at a complete stop? The
4 wheel drive might help the Audi launch (or would you still eat his lunch?).
Both Companies are going for small luxury 4 doors with a strong performance emphasis. It's hard to argue against the Audi's relative value. Fully loaded and with standard all wheel drive the Audi costs less than a base C55. And that includes free service for 4 years. I chose the C55 for styling reasons. The vaunted Audi interior just doesn't do it for me. The Recaros are excellent, but I like the AMG seats as well or better. And even though the Mercedes is no Civic Hybrid, I have not heard as many Gas Mileage blues being sung here. It is not atypical to get 200 miles a tank on the S4 with average City driving yielding 12-13 MPG.
Anybody else test drive the Audi? Impressions?

the big advantage about the S4 is its AWD, off the mark, they are really good if you could get the launch right. The C55 will get it in the end because the S4 loses a lot of top end power at the wheels due to AWD and it's less powerful

Anyone done it against an Audi RS4 (380HP)? That would be interesting.....

Just drove my colleague's 03 RS6 Estate in the UK. Rocketed to 140mph in no time (scared the ***** out of me), the stopping power of the Brembo BBKs was just perfect and handling round bends was excellent.....but I'd still go for an AMG but for styling, quality and resale value

Honestly were both still amateurs and were still learning are cars. And i dont think we brought out the best of are cars.

Our launches are the same but after 4 seconds i smoked him.

My good friend has a B6 S4 that is VERY powerful, not your average S4....intake, chip, and downpipes and exhaust, car make 275hp and 274 tq at the wheels and has a 7500 rpm redline, ironically from a roll I can only get about 1/2 car length to 120mph!!! Remember this is not stock, but isnt any car to underestimate.
Jason

About how many miles would someone consider the C55 truly broken-in, running at it's peak? Just curious.

Nick

Good kill btw!

does he have the manual, tiptronic, or the DSG (that's if it's available yet on the S4s)????

video, Video, VIDEO!!!!!!!!! Lets see it. Make a video you and someone with the camera. Also put someone in the S4 with the driver of the car. (make it even)

15 to 20 thousand miles is the conventional wisdom as to how far you must drive an engine to get peak performance out of it. The reason is that everything in the engine has to settle and when we are talking about the types of hardened metal, that doesn't happen overnight. Some will disagree, but one thing that is interesting, and they don't do it as often, is to look at the one-year tester cars in magazines. They usually do a relatively new and 1 year test of performance. Almost invariably, the car performs much better after 1 year. It can be as much as .3 seconds off the 60 alone. That is significantly faster in the real world, not just a numerical difference.

Hope this helps.

The Audi S4 was automatic with triptronic i think. But nethier of us used are steptronic or triptronic. We left it in auto mode. We didnt really take it so seriously maybe one day we can get videos in there and what not.

if both were auto's they got the max out of the cars.

Put foot to floor and car goes as fast as it can. Is this something we need to learn over time? I hope not .

If it were a 6 speed the S4 would have the driver skill factor but autos on a roll on are SIMPLE. Foot down... car goes...

CynCarvin32,

I can only assume you were addressing my post with your comment.

I have spent some time trying to find out where anybody said the race was a roll on. In fact, to the contrary, I see quite a few discussions about the launch.

That having been said, if this were a roll on, the driver still makes a difference, otherwise you could tie off the steering wheel, put a brick on the accelerator and get the same results. I don't buy it. Would the 1st and 2nd place finishers trade places? Probably not, but the distance between them could definitely change.

The main factors that come to the top of my head now are driver-adaptive transmission mode, and whether you self-shift or auto shift. Others exist.

I won't address the differences driver skill makes when starting from a complete stop since you really seem to be talking about roll ons.

I hope that explains my post.

actually, put the foot to floor on a C32 or C55 and youll end up smoking the tires and running a crappy ET with some crazy @$$ mph!! It takes a certain skill to get a RWD car with power out from a dig with minimal wheelspin.. automatic or not!!!

My mistake... it was a good old American drag race. So yes I was wrong.

BUT a car with more power will walk away from a slower car after 1/2 a mile or maybe even a 1/4 mile.

Launching an auto S4 is a joke. Any fool could do it.

A c32 is mostly simple. Only 2x did my C32 spin its tires to the point where I could not get going well. But then again I don't care if a car beats me to 60. A C55 has more tq so then it does get harder from there. A modded C32 is equal to a stock C55 in tq so that car would have the same issue I guess.

But even if a C55 has a terrible launch, it will still leave the S4 after about 100 for it's a far faster car (auto to auto).

As for driver adaptive shifting... I think a point needs to be cleared up here. When the throttle is pressed into the kick down switch the car throws out that whole driver adaptive BS and just does what it has to do to get to speed as fast as possible. It may remember you using this feature and kick down faster next time but once you put your foot to the floor the car is not thinking about driver style when it shifts. That is why it has a kick down switch. I could get in an old ladies car and put my foot to the floor and it would go just as fast as a car driven my Mr. stop light drag king.

But how often do you race at a stoplight? Vroom....

A true test of power is a 50-140 run for it makes the car run through its gears and does not alow it to use 4wd to run away. A C32 and or C55 will leave a stock B6 S4 tip in its mirrors in this test every time regardless of drive adaptive transmissions or driver skill.

What I would say about the driver adaptive shifting comment is that it doesn't make much difference for the kickdown, but it makes a difference for the upshift. I was assuming they shifted gears during the race at least once or twice and not being able to use 500 to 1000 revs because of "granny" mode sucks.

I am not disagreeing with you on which car should walk away as the winner in this comparo. The reason for asking was really to confirm how much faster the C55 is, not who would win or if the win was valid.

Honestly, they were simple questions that you dissected and made complex. The answers to my questions were not clear to me before, and being that this is a forum for the exchange of ideas, I thought I would try to learn the answer from someone who has first-hand experience. But, your data is only as good as the source and to trust numbers without explanation is foolish.

I really don't think this needs further discussion and is slowly slipping towards off topic status. Take care.

Off topic status? Is this not a thread about S4 vs C55 and tranny ECU's?

As for the Kick down switch... the feature is there to induce max acceleration regardless of what the ecu has stored. I drive C240 loan vehicles often and no one drive a C240 like me. Funny thing is that when you get in the car and go to WOT the car shifts exactly at redline in first past redline in second and past redline in third (my normal departure from the dealership as I enter the freeway to go home). There is no 500-1000 rpm left in the car if driven slowly and then pushed hard.

I flog a C32 at the track all day long and it has the same shift points (when using the kick down switch) on the way home from the track as on the way to the track. Part throttle shifts are a completely different story for this is where the adaptive ECU comes into play.

Kick down switches are a safety feature to induce maximum acceleration when needed. If the car did not extract ever last rpm MB would open themselves to law suites that the system