i have a 2001 audi a4 2.8 quattro 5 speed manual. is there any reason for my car to understeer a lot? is it because of the tires? i have goodyear rsa tires. i know they arent very good tires, they have about 5k miles on them and they are awful in the rain and not that predictable in the dry. before i get new tires, like Michelin pilot a/s, i want to know if they'll make much of a difference. i push my car to the limits and sometimes it just doesnt respond. is it just the performance of my car? should i trade it in and get a 2001 s4?(im just worried about turbo failure in the s4's. any thoughts on the s4 let me know) so bottom line, will tires help correct the understeer of my car? should i just trade it in and get a different car(2001 audi s4, 2003 bmw 330i zhp)

 

nope, the thing is it's a B5 and when it was designed, the engine mount points are farther towards the front of the car than the axles. such a design will cause understeer because more weight is towards the front of the car. an 2001 S4 will do the same thing. a couple of ways to counter this understeer you can mod your center diff for a rear torque bias. another way is suspension setup. coilovers and nice large sway bars will really help

 

if your alignment is off on awd it will make you handle like crap but if arnt any crappy tires should work fine on awd my buddies have junkyard tires on his a4 and my buddy the same for his wrx and the handling is amazing still

the car has understeer from the heavy weight of the 2.8 engine if u want to get rid of the understeer you can go coilovers and just have amazing handling theres ways to fix it

also does your car have the sports suspsension?

s4's are maintence ****** if you dont have alot of time on your hands and lots of extra cash the car might not be for you

 

im not sure it has sport suspension, i bought it used at 50,000 miles in 2004. it doesn't seem like it though, it has a sport steering wheel, non sport seats, a lot of body roll, doesnt have the ESP button. so i dont think so. are there any signs of it that it would be or wouldnt be sport package?

 

To decrease understeer you only want to upgrade the rear sway bar, this increases oversteer on our quattro cars.

 

^^^ what he said, a firm rear sway helps a ton!

 

sport steering wheel is one way the other way i believe is the springs are red and the car is a little lower than the stock b5 audis

 

Sport Steering wheel was an option on its own too, I ordered my 2000 1.8t that way and it came with non sport seats.

 

Non-sport: Black shocks

Sport: Red shocks

Any other color, they were replaced with non-oem.

I've owned both non-sport and sport equipped 2.8 A4's at the same time. Sport is so much better it needs to be experienced. I'm betting you have non-sport. My SUV currently out handles my non-sport A4, and by a huge margin. A4 suspension needs replacement(100k), but still.

 

should i replace with a bmw 330i? or is there a better audi to replace it with?