Hi ya’ll, this is my first post. I just picked up a 2020 b9.5 s4 in turbo blue 🤤 as my early Christmas gift! I wanted to share my thoughts, experiences, and reviews.
To understand my journey: I came from a red ‘15 s3, switched to a black loaded ‘18 A4, and now blue ‘20 s4. I’ve also owned an e46 m3, an e93 m3, a street bike, and a cruiser bike a few years ago.
My objective: Figure out what my daily, spirited driving car will be as my lease was coming to an end, with “semi-decent” mpg within my financial target.
Before I made this decision, I was torn like many people here and also in the forums.
Questions I asked myself:
Get a used b9 s4 instead of a new b9.5?
Get an rs3?
Consider an s5 instead?
Keep the A4, put money into it, make it fast?
Consider a used m3/m4? New m340?
Consider Tesla 3 performance?
Ride out 7 remaining months of lease?
Sell car out from lease (carmax)?
Drive all and compare
Keep in mind, before I made a decision, I have driven just about every audi loaner the dealership has allowed along with a couple of friends’ cars ranging from an a3 to an r8. I’ve also taken a few test drives as well.
I actually became bored of the A4. I felt more thrill in the red s3 as it carried a unique feel. Even though I was tired of cleaning a black car often, the A4 had some notables: more luxurious, spacious for my use, techy, better planted with suspension, and more quiet of course (both road noise and engine). This quickly ruled out the rs3 although that engine/tranny are awesome together.
A buddy of mine worked for Tesla, and I’ve had my fair share of all models. Tesla dominates the freeway real estate on the SoCal roads and eliminates the uniqueness I was searching. I also got bored driving these. It’s also a matter of time electric cars will be the only option. So take advantage of gas cars while we can...right?
I’ve had Bmw in my veins but N/A motors. I did enjoy driving the m3/m4, but the sound wasn’t great from an in-line 6 turbo. I also did not enjoy the m340 even though it was quick. The interior was all the same as other base models. Bmw, teslas, and Mercedes are everywhere in SoCal... and the 3 series just look outright boring. If I went with the m3/m4, I would want a manual tranny which is hard to find these days, harder if it was in a red or yas marina blue color. I would also give up mpg and awd which I would need for my trips to the mountains. The AWD is superior in the snow compared to Xdrive in BMW. Last year, I drove an A5 during a blizzard in mammoth. I purposely drove into some heavy berms and never got stuck 😁 It was 5 times better than a 4series in light snow I experienced in Breckenridge. The bmw struggled on just a couple of inches on the ground. I was sold on QUATTRO!
I started driving used s4s/s5s. I really started to enjoy these. The sound from the exhaust & engine is just more of a “raw” experience than the a4. Yes I’ve heard many variations of exhausts on the 2.0t but they just couldn’t compare to the 3.0t. The diamond stitching seats are more firm and hold you in place well. The transmission in “D” was not as smooth or snappy as the s3 but “S” did fix all of that. Manual Paddle shifts were not as quick as the A4 & S3, but I rarely use these on my daily drives. But the S4 & S3 did put you in the “right” gear and accelerated quicker when needed compared to the A4 which always had to downshift a few gears to move the car. Dynamic suspension in the S4 was a huge improvement over my previous S3 and obviously better than the sport suspension on A4. The mpg were less on the s4 unless you can feather the throttle some. It didn’t help that I kept flooring it everywhere to hear the 3.0t open up. The s4 was what I was looking for to satisfy the best of both worlds from the s3 and the A4. I’m aware of the facelift changes made on the b9.5, hence I was looking for options at this point.
As I agreed with the good lines on the b9, the b9.5 facelift actually looks great on certain colors with black optics package. It was also nice and refreshing to me as I’m coming from the same lines of the A4 for the past couple years.
The S5 did have some nice lines and felt a little bigger with some blind spots, but it also increased the price which I wasn’t sure I wanted. I drive by myself 90% of the time and wasn’t sure if I could justify the price difference.
So I finally reached out to another buddy of mine who is a sales manager for audi in SoCal. This is the same guy that put me in the 2 previous audis. He told me to wait til season of audi as it would be hard to pull me out of my lease early. So I waited literally 1 month and finally said I have “the one.” He personally built this car to be delivered and sold on the floor with my taste in mind...lol! And it finally arrived after some delays at custom.
2020 Turbo Blue, fully loaded, yes flat bottom steering wheel, carbon everywhere. You better believe that I did research and found that this color was a rare find in Cali, more so on an S. The color changes in all different light!
Better yet: season of audi was offering lots of incentives, “pull ahead” offers were available for to pay for any existing leases/financing, year end to push all 2020’s off the floor with 2021’s coming in, and on top of that it was the last 2 days of the month which is THE best time to get a deal.
Timing is everything...right?
My buddy really pulled through. So if anyone is looking for a good deal in SoCal, I can hook you up with him. I don’t know about outside states though, I can ask if interested.
In the end, I’m extremely happy with my decision. I’m already considering keeping this car at the end of the lease because it feels that “special.”
With that in mind, I’ve already installed the 034 intake. It was way easier than the A4 (took only 15 min). I’m already considering an exhaust, tune, intercooler lol!
Has the Mod bug has begun...? 😳😂
Cheers 🍻 🥂 to 2021!
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Originally Posted by Mops@Nemesis
worth it?
).
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