Craig

'96 A4 is not that bad.

Steve S.

If you got the 2.8 Quattro 5-speed...I got the same car as you.<p>Steve S.<br>97 2.8QM

sensitive owner

As I read his reply to A4Q: 1.8T vs. 2.8 post below, this sentence was a bit too much<br>for me although I do think he gave very good opinions on the two cars.<br>I guess his family's 96 is not manual and it's even slower than mine.<p>I want to do the suspension upgrade too...so many things I want to do but I need<br>to prioritize.<p>Yeah, you-know-who, Steve. ;-)<br>

Cameron

I can only offer my experience on the cars I've driven, both automatics and manuals.<p>Our 1996 A4 2.8Q was horrible in terms of body roll right off the lot... when was yours built? Ours was an early build and particularly bad, though other 1996 A4's I've driven have been afflicted in the same way.<p>The boat analogy might seem harsh, but that was exactly the problem on the 1996's I've seen... not that the suspension feel wasn't stiff enough (though it wasn't) but more importantly unbalanced. Our suspension on our 1996 had an inordinate amount of dive off the lot, squat doesn't balance the amount of dive. An unacceptable amount. I drove Cathleen's black 1996 A4 2.8QM... the car was better than ours but still felt very different from our 1997 which felt far tighter. Part of it was the suspension felt off balance. I drove a friend's 1996 A4 2.8QM who just bought the car used. The car had a strange left bias in turns, coming out of right turns in a far better way than left turns. I think the right front suspension components had been abused somehow, or was close to failure, but the car only has 18,900 miles on it!<p>I love our 1996 A4. Don't get me wrong, I love the A4, in all its various forms. But the suspension has been the most objectionable part of EVERY 1996 stock 2.8Q I've EVER seen :-( Not that other things didn't fail, not that the suspension for 1996 was somehow the most horrible thing on earth, but just that this is such a common problem (in my experience) that an aftermarket suspension would go down in my book as a "must".<p>I don't find it hard to believe that there are 2.8Q's where the stock suspension was great, but I find it hard to believe the examples I've driven have had suspension problems to this extreme.<p>Just what I've experienced,<br>Cameron