Garage Storage, Organization, and Garage Cabinets

Before pulling out of the lot, I noticed the DTC button. If any of you know me, or if you are an enthusiast, you know exactly what that button is and what to do with it. Before leaving, the salesman states "That's the dynamic traction control button, we suggest you keep that on". So, like any child would, I immediately pushed it! Once on the road, I noticed that the suspension was tight, a little bouncy, but exactly what I expect from a sports car. It still gave a surprisingly smooth ride. Handling was tight, very predictable and precise. The car did everything I wanted, and then some. Even with the traction control "reduced", as the message display states, the car stuck to the road like glue. I pushed the car quite hard and it was everything that I was expecting. It had no turbo lag, had great midrange and top end was down right nasty. No matter where I was in the RPM range, power was always plentiful.

As mentioned earlier, the S60 R is using an engine that is a few years old. Its' power plant is a 2.5 liter twin turbo 5 cylinder, which also produces 300hp and 295ft-lbs of tq. As I started the car, I heard a sound that I would have mistaken for a 4 cylinder with a bit more aggression in its' voice. The clutch was quite easy to master and we were off without a hitch. Normal driving, this car felt no different than any other car. It lagged more than I would have expected and getting power required some RPM revving. Once I started pushing it, I noticed that there was not as much pull from turbo spool either. Delivery was slow and it wasn't until midrange that I felt much. Once into the higher RPMs, the car sort of flat lined. It felt as if it ran out of go juice too early. There is a lot of revving going on, up to 7,000 RPMs, but shifting this late was useless. I found that shifting at closer to 6,000 RPMs would give me better results, so unless you just like making noise, an extra 1,000 RPMs made no difference.

Handling did, in fact, surprise me. If it's one advantage that S60 has, it's the ability to push a button, Comfort, Sport or Advanced, to determine what kind of ride you wanted. Believe it or not, pushing this button made quite a difference, especially while on back roads. The BMW has a slight disadvantage here, especially when the wifey starts to complain "it's too bumpy!".

This particular car was a 6 speed manual transmission. The clutch and transmission just did not feel as smooth and clean as it could have. By far my worst complaint of this entire car. Perhaps I should have driven the auto, but I soon shot that idea down, because I fear I would have only been disappointed more.

The Audi A4 is a bit of a fresh idea here. With turbos being the current dominator in the industry at the moment with imports, it's nice to have a normally aspirated vehicle to throw into the bunch. It did quite well, I must add.

Audi dumped its' 2.7T engine and now places the 3.2 liter 6 cylinder under its' hood of many cars, including the A6 and with good reason. It's a great all round engine. With 255hp and 243ft-lbs of tq, it puts the A4 at the rear of the pack with horsepower. Make no mistake, a real driving enthusiast will be quick to like this car. 0-60 comes in at 6.7 seconds, but remember, you can't drive a spec sheet. The engine feels very alive and loves midrange. I had to learn to shift the car a little earlier for spirited driving and required only a slight wind of the RPMs to get up to speed.

Shifting felt easy, but felt like the car had an aggressive clutch, which took some finesse to operate smoothly. The car also had a 6 speed manual transmission.

In the twisties, this car handled wonderfully. It was a bit difficult to find the right gear at first to pull out of the turns hard, but once I got the hang of it, it started to surprise me. Where this car lacks in power, it makes up in handling. It's certainly no slouch on those back roads.

BMW uses a unique key system now. It's a computer chipped "fob" that you put into a slot in the dash and then push a start/stop button. On the dash, there was a digital message screen with the typical options and read outs.

One thing I had problems with was the turn signal. It would turn off before I would even start turning in some cases. The switch is not a typical mechanical switch, it seems to be electronic. I asked the salesman about this and he told me that he was not aware of any problems, but hey, why would he when he's trying to sell a car?

The S60 R's interior was finally something that I liked about the car. It looked like it had a little more effort put into its' design. The instrument cluster was a blue aluminum with brushed aluminum outlines. The shifter boot had been replaced by an aluminum type plate that slid with the shifter and gave the area a very clean and sort of sci-fi look.

Final thoughts:
If I were to place these vehicles into placements based soley on performance, the BMW would have slightly edged the Audi and only because of power. If comparing the old 330i and A4 3.2, the Audi would most certainly have taken my vote. So, best performing car goes to the 335i, best all round car would go to the A4. As for the S60, well, Volvo has already stated that they are discontinuing the S60 R after 2007, then, reintroducing it in a couple years totally reworked. I am sure by that time, this comparison will be much closer. If Audi bumps up its' power a bit for the A4, then that would most certainly also make the competition tough.