Cavey wrote:
Nice wheels mate.
It's a smart, understated motor; no-one would batt an eyelid if turning up to a meeting or whatever, but it goes pretty damn well, and has foolproof, default (benign) understeer handling, with great traction and roadholding. Stonking turbo midrange too.
It'll never bite, basically, which anyone sensible (i.e. not me) would say is a good thing. Plus it's well made and safe, and someone else has taken the initial depreciation hit.
I loved my TTs, and the A3 saved my ass. You could do much worse I reckon.
Thanks Cavey, and wouldn't disagree with anything you've said there.
An S4 won't provide the levels of involvement or excitement that your Porsche will, or that something along the lines of an M3 would - but it's very fast in a straight line and reasonably adept through the corners in the way I'll be driving it, which is to say not on the edge as it'll always be on public roads! (I have no intention of tracking it, although they do run track days up at Jurby Airfield on a reasonably regular basis, I'm not sure I'd want to destroy a set of tyres and brakes in an afternoon
)
In my head I've been looking for some sort of midpoint between the Scooby and the Merc. Four doors, good sized boot, capable family vehicle basically, plus a good turn of speed and fun to drive, but nicely equipped and comfortable. (The Scooby was somewhat spartan and uncomfortable, the Merc didn't tick the 'fun' box at all, and whilst the 7G-Tronic was good it was a long way behind either a decent manual box or the DSG on the S4.)
At 9 months before moving on the Merc has been pretty short-lived even by my standards (I generally manage 12-24 months), so let's see how the S4 fares
EDIT - There was a revision on the insurance as well, the £425 was from Elephant as the local broker who I normally go through was having trouble finding the car so couldn't quote. I returned again this afternoon to basically say 'You need to find this car on your system before Tuesday next week or I'll have to get insured somewhere else', and then one call to the dealer later to clarify what it might turn up as (something totally daft like 'Audi A4 Multitronic Quattro S4' or something), and I was told it'd be just £20 for the rest of the year, and then the full year renewal would come in at around £300, which is hardly any more than the Merc. The benefits of being an old fucker I suppose