Originally Posted by
pkny
This is were i am a bit confused. Isn't the A4 suppose to be in the "Luxury Sport" category? Like the smaller BMW's, Mercedes and Lexus brands? Can't really have a only luxury in a mid size sedan. So a more powerful engine compare to its entry level brand 1.8t Volkswagen should of been approved. Something between the Jetta 1.8t and Audi TT 225 would of been nice. Well thank goodness for quattro and great interior design (there are some quirks), if not for that it would not have made it this far in name. Not saying it is ugly, but it could of been better. Like not have 2 toned color.
This gets even more complicated when Audi decided to make the base A4 look ugly if trims like the sports package are not purchased. WHile the competition made their base of all base look good with somewhat of a body kit and at least 16or17 inch rims and non-4x4 spring struts. This is suppose to be a luxury sport sedan.
Seems like Audi has stepped it up in their 2005+ models though.
That's what i've been thinking. That and if you look at other luxury cars, they're for the most part bigger and have bigger engines. And i'm not talking about luxury sports cars like the BMW 3 series, but rather cars like the 7 series. Or Bentley's and Rolls Royce's that come with V12's. I understand that these examples are also WAY more expensive, but it still validates the idea that if luxury cars aren't supposed to be fast then why do they always come with such large engines? Because these cars are supposed to be pure luxury, cars you can get driven around in, cars that are meant to take it easy. Yet they come with these huge, powerful engines.
The only reason i can see the A4 being so underpowered is that they wanted there to be a bigger gap between the A4 and the S4. Especially considering they offered two different engine sizes in the A4. And in order to make the 1.8t more powerful it would have been too close to the 3.0 in power, which would have made getting the 3.0 less attractive to buyers. And then if they would have had to make the 3.0 more powerful they probably would have also made the S4 more powerful, which probably didn't fit what they were going for with the S4, or the price point and class it sells in, even though the Mercedes and BMW's from the same class are both more powerful (but they're both more expensive too).
And when compared to the Jetta, it doesn't really have a higher model like the S of the Audi world or the M of the BMW world or the AMG of Mercedes. They have the VR6 but it's not the same, it's more like the difference between the 1.8t A4 and the 3.0. And when you think about BMW, they only offer one engine for the 3 series, so they were able to make it more powerful without having to come as close the M3.
But i still think they could have gone with the same 180 hp engine and been fine.
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