While my car is stranded, awaiting a new transmission, I am driving a courtesy Ford Taurus sedan(6th day today). SE model, manufactured 1999, model year 2000, 3 litre V6 engine. As far as I can tell, it does not have any aftermarket or factory suspension mods. ( I will look into this further).

Well, the amazing thing is that it turns and handles better than my 2.7T with factory sport suspension. My car will typically lean over a bit before firming up as I turn (unwary passengers have reached out for the dasboard on occassion). So I repeatedly put the Taurus through my regular turns and twisties and ....it holds firm!! There is very definitely a slight lean, (less than my 2.7T) but it is well controlled. However, I think if I really did some abnormally fast manoevers, my 2.7T would probably win (magazine tests and other reviews would support this). But for general driving, the 2.7T still wallows too much for my liking.

The ride is also as good as my 2.7T. It feels firm but not hard or harsh, with a similar amount of pitching over road undulations and bumps. Different tires may contribute to this. Ride is not my gripe here.

Compared to my 2000 A4 2.8 Avant factory sport suspension and Neuspeed rear sway bar, the 2.7T was always in a lessor league. Now this Taurus experience makes me realize that Audi must have put a luxo-barge type suspension as standard for the U.S. and the "sport version" only made a slight improvement. Of course, the Taurus, in other areas does not compare at all.

How did Ford get it right? The Taurus is a family car after all. Did Audi aim the A6 2.7T at a group of buyers that want to ride around in their living room arm chairs (a la Cadillac)?? How could they endow a car that has state of the art technologies (aluminium suspension/turbocharged engine,etc) and near supercar performance with such puny handling? How come companies like BMW install a real sports suspension whereas Audi seems to install something less than satisfactory? ...and we're paying top dollar!!

I feel, well, cheated!!

 

especially since I live in Dallas (not so many turns)..that I am having a hard time with the dive, squat and wollowing over bumps. I think I am actualy starting to feel a kind of seasick feeling driving dwon one particular strech of road that has many small "heat heaves"..

 

It is very common to assume that a car that leans less handles better. This is not necessarily so.

I'm guessing the Taurus weighs less, which is a big help in reducing wallow. Is Audi's less firm suspension excusable? I dunno.

I don't think the 2.7T is supposed to have the same suspension feel as your S4, they are sold to different markets.

Still, all that having been said, Audi needs to sport up their cars a bit if they want to be the VW sporty division. I think are working on this already given the radical suspension changes on the 2002 A6. Quite a bit for a midlife freshening.

 

For me, the daily average driver, lean is unsettling. The Taurus gives me more confidence in turns.

 

Pure blasphemy! Never have I heard such tripe! I get in a Taurus and I want to lose my lunch...or drive straight into a tree...

Good luck, I'm sorry your 2.7T feels so awful (it must be awful if it feels worse than a Taurus)...coilovers? Arrrggggghhhhh...a Taurus, he said!!! Arrrgggghhhh

 

I've ordered an S8.

S8
Atlas Gray
Platium Int.
Premium Pkg
Tire Monitor

 

with an 02 Titanium Silver Q45 with the Premium Pckg. It gives the best of all worlds:
Exterior Design--It does look like an Asian Taurus; a hybrid between an SHO and an Elantra.
Interior--as much stuff as any tricked-out A6.
Ride--Truly BUICKESQUE. If they drilled portholes in the front fenders they could re-badge it a Roadmaster.

When I test drove the 4.2 w/sport pkg I thought the ride was only slightly less edgy than the 540i with more tolerance for road surfaces and only slightly less engine groan. Taurus???

 

Thanks for the comments. More later, have a busy morning.

 

roll. If you watch some vintage racing, you realize that body roll is not the end of the world;-) Yes, in pure terms, you do not want much roll. Keep in mind though, that the real goal is to keep the wheels on the ground as much as possible in all situations - especially when dealing with street applications.

The reason for keeping the car as level as possible, is if you where to encounter multiple turns in short order. The less time it takes for the car to recover from the last manouver, the more quickly you can deal with the next. Most often this applies to racing or auto-x.<ul><li><a href="http://www.turnfast.com/tech_handling/handling_springs.lasso">Read this series</a></li></ul>

 

In the end what you want is fo the car to go around the corner fast and go where you point it. There is no real trick to getting any car to corner flat, hard springs and/or sway bars. The problem is that this makes the ride uncomfortable. Every car suspension is a compromse between brisk handling and ride comfort. On the sock A6 suspension I felt the compromise was a bit too much on the comfort side but I am very happy with the sport suspension.

There is one possible solution, a variable sway bar, as in the new BMW 740. The car senses body roll and firms up the sway bar (I am not actually sure what happens mechanically) to give almost zero roll with a soft suspension. I have been designing just such a system for my A6 ever since I got my 2000 non-sport. It is really quite simple to do, one accelerometer and some simple pneumatic or hydralic cylinder on each end of the car. I don't really feel like I need it on my 2001 sport A6 though. Maybe when my new house get finished I will have the time to try out my idea.

One last thought, there is much more to suspension design then picking spring and sway bar rates. The geometry, weight, bushings, isolation, etc. all creat the whole system. The engineer designing this system has certain goals that may or may not be the same as yours. In the case of the Taurus, cost was a major consideration, but hard springs and sway bars cost no more than soft ones.