Originally Posted by
Rick
Stay away from the 1.4 engine.
It's stressed, and the turbo is not strong.
The S4 B8 is a superb engine, but it's thirsty as is supercharged, heavy and 4wd.
The S3 is a very good car. Best 4 cylinder engine there is. 8 injectors, water cooled exhaust manifold makes it good on fuel and very very tuneable.
Have a look at the Golf GTi. These are an awesome car, handle better than an S3, and are very frugal being lighter and 2wd. Same engine but smaller turbo. They tune to over 300bhp with just a map and are generally very reliable.
Rick
I primarily drive most places fairly reserved and less than half throttle - partly because my car doesn't really do much more on full throttle than it does on half throttle, apart from drink more fuel
- so a more "normal" car like the 1.4 TFSi makes more sense. But I do like to press on now and again, so the worry is pushing a 1.4T to 90/100 of its capability as opposed to pushing the S3 engine to 75/80% of its capability. On the other hand, seems a bit daft to have a car like the S3 and spend most to the time driving it like the 1.4...
The B8 S4 was the one that originally made me think of looking at Audi's after my Lexus - I remember changing a screen on one a bunch of years ago, no idea what it was but saw the "V6T" badges and talked to the owner who said it's actually a supercharged 3.0 V6 rather than turbo as the badges suggest (I knew they'd done the 2.7 bi-turbo before, my mate has one, and then the NA V8's). That's when I discovered there was such a thing as an S3 (and RS3) as I'm well out of the loop (hence not knowing they're really popular, and incredibly stolen which might put a stop to getting one if the insurance is going to be silly)
I didn't know the S3 engine had 8 injectors though - so it's better than an RS500 then