Living for the Weekend: 2018 Audi S4
Revamped Audi S4 gives us 354 more reasons to hate Mondays.
You’ve seen it before. Perhaps you were walking around your neighborhood when you did. You were a couple of blocks away from your house and saw an open garage door out of the corner of your eye. Next to the yard tools and boxes of Christmas decorations, there it was: a “weekend car.” The kind of high-performance, fun-to-drive vehicle that’s perennially spotless, waiting to emerge from its dimly lit confines for its short time in the sun. Sometimes it’s a vintage muscle car. Other times it’s a European two-seater. Whatever it happens to be, its owner only takes it out on the road every now and then. It’s too uncomfortable and impractical to take to the office and the grocery store, so as its more softly sprung and spacious roommate is out driving, it sits in the garage, an automotive idol that’s lovingly primped…and imprisoned.
With its 2018 S4, Audi has succeeded in making a weekend car that you can also drive Monday through Friday. It’s roomy enough when you need to commute and carry passengers, and satisfyingly powerful and engaging when you drive it hard.
Going from the last model to this newest one, engineers made numerous changes, some more substantial than others. The basic design of the B9 model is similar to its predecessor, but features a sharper, more defined grille frame and LED headlights and tail lights with crisper edges.
Powertrain engineers kept the old S4’s three-liter displacement and V6 configuration while changing the parts that the engine connects to. Instead of a supercharger, the 3.0 now uses a single twin-scroll turbo to make extra power. The new S4 generates 354 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque – increases of 21 and 44, respectively. To better process that extra twist, the 2018 S4 is equipped with a single-clutch eight-speed automatic instead of the outgoing car’s seven-speed dual-clutch unit. quattro all-wheel drive routes 40 percent of that output to the front and 60 percent to the rear end by default. Audi fitted my test car with an optional torque-vectoring Sport differential for more strategic power delivery.
Standard equipment inside the S4 includes quilted leather seats, Alcantara accents, three-zone climate control, Bang & Olufsen audio, LED ambient lighting, a power sunroof, and a rearview camera. The car I drove was outfitted with optional Carbon Atlas inlays on the door panels, dashboard, and center console. Whoever configured my media loaner ticked the boxes for upgrades such as the Prestige trim line, S Sport package, and Driver Assistance package, which added features including a head-up display, Audi virtual cockpit, MMI navigation, that sport diff, sport adaptive damping, and adaptive cruise control. As tested, it had a sticker price of $65,625.
The 2018 S4 is a weekend car you can also drive Monday through Friday. It’s roomy enough when you have passengers, and satisfyingly powerful when you drive it hard.
On suburban and city streets, the S4 largely stayed true to its entry-level luxury sedan roots. It was quiet, calm, and comfortable. Fit and finish left nothing to be desired. The heated front seats with adjustable side bolsters had a definite “boy racer” look to them, but their three massage modes made them more “responsible (and comfortable) adult.” The back seats were also heated and offered more than enough legroom for me to sit behind the front seat once it was adjusted to my 5’10” build. A push of a button below the HVAC controls allowed me to put the Audi drive select system in its Comfort, Auto, Individual, and Dynamic settings. In Comfort, the S4 offered a mostly pleasant ride quality, although it was on the sportier (aka stiffer) side of compliant.
I found myself pushing another button to the right of the ADS controls even more frequently. In every other vehicle with automatic engine start/stop that I’ve driven, the engine shut off when I came to a complete stop. Keyword: complete. The S4 seemed a little too eager to conserve fuel. I would slow down for a red light then feel the engine die at roughly two miles per hour. Instead of finding that instant when I was still moving forward with no engine power to be a thoughtful way of saving gas, I found it annoying and disorienting. I deactivated the start/stop system the majority of the times I started a trip in the S4. I turned it on again when I had already stopped myself and I was sitting for long periods in thick traffic.
There were only a few things that reminded me I was in an amped-up A4. The most obvious was the S4’s exhaust note. In Comfort mode, the quad tips let out a low, dull buzz as a subtle way of letting me know I was in something special no matter how slowly I happened to drive it. The suspension was a little more understated in conveying its message. Even in the S4’s least aggressive drive settings, the suspension had a remarkable flatness to it when I drove through curves. The second I discovered that was the instant I wanted to aim the S4 at asphalt serpents and fire away. Once I did, normal roads and relaxed cruising were no longer good enough.
That eagerness only grew when I selected Dynamic mode on the S4’s center screen. The exhaust fully opened to let a deeper, fuller growl into the cabin. It removed all doubt about what kind of car it was speaking for. Its digitized angry howl was invisible but not intangible. I could feel its presence, and the car’s impatience with my disciplined right foot. Simultaneously, the gearbox went from its regular drive setting into its more performance-focused sport mode, bumping up the RPMs to seat the S4’s engine closer to the sweet meat of the rev range.
Hitting 60 only takes 4.4 seconds. The push back into my seat put a smile on my face, white in my knuckles, and distrust of Audi’s published horsepower figures in my mind.
At leisurely speeds, the S4 behaved itself, putting its power to suburban streets smoothly and gently. Flat out, the S4’s acceleration was as linear as it was manic. It was hard to notice any lag. All of the turbocharged V6’s horses came out in a straight line…with foam bubbling around their mouths and all four legs flailing murderously. Hitting 60 only takes 4.4 seconds. The push back into my seat put a smile on my face, white in my knuckles, and distrust of Audi’s published horsepower and torque figures in my mind. If the S4 is more potent than the company claims, I could believe it…and gratefully forgive Audi for the number fudging.
Audi’s engineers tempered that force with constantly composed steering and brakes. The substantial weight and solid feeling from the electromechanical rack let me know it could calmly direct the V6’s stampede of power. Off-center the S4’s steering was relaxed and unhurried then grew more tactile as I turned the wheel harder. The S Sport package’s red calipers clamped down on the 13.8-inch front and 13-inch rear ventilated rotors smoothly and progressively, allowing me build up speed with confidence and peace of mind knowing I could lower it without any herky-jerky theatrics.
Audi succeeded in making a dual-nature sedan, one with the comfort of a commuter car and the performance of a weekend car. The 2018 Audi S4 was great at being the small, comfortable four-door it needed to be. I couldn’t fault its Monday – Friday performance, but as soon as I got a hint of what it could do after work hours, I didn’t find anything else it did nearly as stimulating. It was a victim of its own success. The S4 made driving it as fast as possible for as long as possible the only thing on my mind. I wanted it to be Saturday every day.
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