snagitseven

There are too many advantages and as gk1 wrote, electric steering is not going away. Your next new car will more than likely have it. As time goes by, Audi and other manf. will find ways to improve the designs and performance. Right now, I would say Audi is about 90% of the way there and future software and hardware improvements will likely get it very close to hydraulic steering feel and action. My 2013 A6 steering is actually very acceptable except for what I perceive as an occasional wandering at highway speeds which can't be attributed to road conditions, tires or alignment. Audi has supposedly been working for awhile on a "fix" for this condition. We'll see.

Luna's S4

My sincere apologies for my misinformed understanding of my own vehicle.

Luna's S4

And sorry for spouting junk. My humble apologies.

drew2.7T

There is a known issue with the B8.5 S4 steering. Audi has a campaign to fix but hasn't rolled it out yet. I have a 2013 S4 and had the dealer disable DSR / driver steering recommendation. This was advice given by a fellow blogger. The symptoms are notcheness at lower speeds, like a robot trying to steer the car especially at highway speeds. (Basically the car was over correcting itself) Once I had the DSR disabled it works great, smooth and in control. If you are getting the 14 S4 I highly recommend the sport diff. Best wishes, Drew

seinsmeld13

The re are many many improvements on the 2013 S4 over my previous 2010 S4, steering isn't one of them. The steering wheel, check, new shifter, check, new DSG, check, electric steering, in a word terrible. It's so bad my wife got pulled over for suspected DUI. Check my thread on Audizine about that. There is a huge post over on Audizine about the electric steering. When new the car drives great however the wander and notchyness soon appear. There is no fix for it at this point through Audi NA. Some have had their racks replaced but this is not a permanent cure. I have disabled dsr however that was my own doing not Audi Canada' they were of no help. You can come and drive my car. With the dsr disabled by way of vagcom dynamic steering is way too stiff. I have it set at auto for steering and dynamic for all other settings. Each time I drive my Porsche or GTI I am reminded on how sh1tty this electric steering really is. Without the vagcom fix the electric steering was so bad I wanted to unload the car, it's truly that bad. Good luck with your decision and do yourself a favor and check out the posts on Audizine. This post on Audizine has over 35,000 views so ya there is certainly an issue with this electric steering.

m j b

I'll check out Audizine. This link to quattroworld implies that newer cars will not have the problem, since they have disabled DSR for cars without adaptive steering (which I have no intention of ordering).

Still, the reason I got rid of my last BMW was because of their electric steering, and this still gives me pause.

drew2.7T

If you get the dealer to disable rather then do it yourself with a vagcom the results are very good. The dealer also told me if you use a vagcom it could put up a flag against the warranty.

TO407S4

I've never heard that using a VAG-COM will TD1 your car. Only performance mods... I got my TD1 because of the ECU, not because of the VAG-COM updates performed. If its a real issue, troubleshooting it with the VAG-COM and if it works, set it back and explain the results to the dealership.

I even send my VAG logs to my dealership

snagitseven

I believe the only time a Vag mod might pull a TD1 or create a warranty issue would be if there were certain changes made that negatively affected the car in some significant way that resulted in a warranty claim to fix. The usual mods most of us perform are software tweaks for ancillary systems.

seinsmeld13

Mine is disabled.