Personally, I'd buy an A4 1.8T quattro and chip it. Save the rest of the $$ on repairs. They're plenty fast enough as a DD. Heck, I had trouble keeping up with one at Mid-O when we both had stock suspensions and my car was chipped as well.

With $4 gas prices, too, the A4 will be more economical.

I'd vote for S4. I want an S4\A4 1.8T so bad but I don't think fate wants to me to have a turbo car. Honda civic here i come...

Honestly the whole front bumper clip pulls off without too much hassle.

10 years newer gets my vote. Everything has broken or needed replacing on my951. I'm still thinking about an audi purchase right now.- as a DD.

My experience is that S4's or A6 2.7T's (same engine) are very reliable and fast. Much cheaper to maintain than a 951 based on age alone. However, the 951 is definitely more fun to drive.

+1

:thumbup:

Wow, alot of mixed reviews! I guess the point is, either can be great or be a disaster. I'm starting to think that the 951 is the safer bet, at least the worst labot intensive jobs are only a couple grand to fix.......

Is the engine bay that hard to work on in a S4? Most people agree that a 951 is pretty well stuffed, but not seeiny the turbos with the engine out sucks! That sounds like a $4000+ job to me.......

If you are capable of doing all of your own work either car is worth owning, however both of them can get very pricey. I am an Audi certified tech and I own a 951, but not as a daily driver. In all honesty working on the 951 is a nice change and is generally much easier to work on than a biturbo S4.

I had an Audi S4 before owning the 951. I owned it a year. I blew stock turbos twice, then put in big turbos. It needed controle arms and tie rods ends every 50k. Timing belt water pump every 50k. Wheel bearings all the time. MAF meter whenever it felt like it. Coil packs all the time. Thats pretty much it, but you get the idea. Oh ya and you have to remove the engine to change the turbos.

That said the engine makes the engien from the 951 look like something from the stone age. The 2.7t is 5 valves per cylinder, twin turbo, coil on plug ignition with very advanced drive by wire motonic. It is so easy to get huge power out of it and turbos spool well under 3000rpm. You can run well of 20psi on pump gas. It is extremely comfortable and very good looking with. Quattro and four doors are also great.

But in the end it is still a big peice of ****. However I would never consider daily driving a 951 either. BMW has a range of cars that are much better. I would take an E39 540 over a S4 any day.

I own them both and have had lots of maintenance costs with both. My bet is a lightly modded 951 will most likely have as many problems as a lightly modded, chipped, S4. Don't have any exact costs but it is interesting that both cars have about the same mileage, around 110k, and on a to date basis the 951 has been much more costly. My 2000 S4 is not chipped and has had wheel bearing problems, common, tie rod ends, oxygen sensor problems, electronic problems (MAF and coil) and has had the belts & water pump replaced as preventative maintenance. No issues with turbos or tranny.

I have two sets of wheels/tires and think the car is an extremely good daily driver, especially in the winter time with lots of snow. With the fold down seats the car will carry an amazing amount of stuff. As to maintenance, the Audi is like almost all German cars, expensive and not reliable, or at least not as reliable as most other brands. The newer Porsches excepted as they seem to be pretty reliable during warranty period.

Oh and did I mention that on street tires my S4 is faster than quite a few Boxsters, Boxster S and even Carreras at our AutoX:)

Timing belt and water pump every 50k? Control arms every 50k? Come on, this is extremely exaggerated. The water pump is metal (I have not seen one break, although anything is possible) and the timing belt isn't called until at least 80k I am sure, as most are 100k+ interval. As far as the control arms are concerned I can't see how the same control arm would need to be replaced every 50k unless you have major alignment issues, but keep in mind there are four control arms on each side up front for a total of eight.

A more sensible, more reliable alternative that has all the AWD, four adult functionality of the $4 is the Subaru Legacy GT.

I bought an '05 Legacy with 18K miles for only $17K. With just another $3K in mods, it will rapidly pull away from any stock S4. I looked very carefully at a few S4's around here and decided that they weren't worth the $. As for handling like a 951, forget it, especially since they are very heavy with ~60% in the front.

Subie turbos have a huge after-market support that rivals P-cars.

Water pump is meant to be done with timing belt. Timing belt kept getting service bullintens for doing them earlier and earlier because they were getting stripped. Last I saw they said 60k, I did 50K to be safe, I have seen them go under 60k. Rear lower controle arms had a recall but were never really improved. On the raods I drove on they went all the time, same with soem uppers, basicly it eneded getting easier to just do them all when a few were bad, as the others were on there way at that point. It ended up being about 50k miles. I owned the S4 for a year and Had a B5 A4 1.8t for 7 years. The one problem the A4 didn't share was the turbo. Combined I have put 170K miles on the B5 chassis. I also worked on a shop that worked on them for 3 years. Great in some ways but **** in others. I think the A4 is a better choice, but would not wish either upon any one.

F**k the S4 ... If your going to go down the Audi route then combine the Porsche lable and your ticket to ride is an RS2

http://images.pistonheads.com/aimg/599/599771-1.jpg

They never came to the US but I can help you import one :thumbup:

If you need to know everything about the RS4 or S4 the get in contact with beni as he knows these cars inside out and has a lovely red RS4 at the moment

Check this for a bargin ... Import and drop a 951 block in it: http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/550756.htm