Audi 4 vs. Bmw 3 Series

The IS is rear wheel drive... and the new one will be AWD...

I am thinking too much weight for the frame with a new AWD system. Everybody is onto AWD but Audi was there first.

Why not an Volvo S40? Or save loadsadough and go with the Mazda 3.

Mazda has problems with the rotary engines... Volvo, I guess, but that has an old man image, like a Cadillac...

And this is important wrt the Mazda 3....why, exactly?

What planet have you been living on?

The Mazda 3 does not have a rotary engine. Only the RX8.

The Mazda 3 uses regular inline-4 engines. Nice ones, too.

-- Mike Smith

I test drove a 3 with my brother, nice little car. For around $23k you can get leather seats, navigation with premium sound, the bigger engine, etc...it's a hell of a deal. I'd probably think about one to replace my GTI if I wasn't dead set on waiting another year to year and 1/2 for either an MKV S3 or a BMW

I was being facetious about the Volvo. The S40 is a tarted up Mazda 3 with a bigger marketing budget, nothing more. And Ford quality to boot. Volvo is not anywhere near where it was nor where it thinks it is. When i went to kick tires at the local Volvo shop the guy said the S60 was = to an A8. I guess he had never seen an A8. The S60 on a good day is an A6 stripper.

Are you sure about that? The original S40 and Mitsubishi Carisma were based on the same platform.

Well, that us kinda my point: re-use, recycle, refurbish and re-market. If I want a Mazda 3 I will buy one.

I appreciate the economic necessity to re-use various bits of h/w by car assemblers and lord knows, there is a bit in my B6 A4 that started as a VW product (mostly in the engine, I believe) but if this keeps on going there will be five car assemblers with four models each. I can hardly wait. By then at least my license will be revoked due to age (I am thinking of a few decades in the future).

One item of note: when I was looking at the G35X in the spring the sales guy sales: all Nissan parts. So why would I buy a G35X if I can get a Maxima (RWD) for a bunch less? To me, he made a mistake. The Audi sales guy made a point of saying: all Audi, not VW parts. I didn't want to task him on the engine. I just had to let that one go.

Actually, it's a tarted-up Ford Focus.

I would say more like S80 ~= A6. The A8 is equaled only by other top-notch Germans.

-- Mike Smith

Indeed. And the Foucs has such good optics. Not too many recalls, the work is not that shoddy, the final assembly is pretty OK, fit and finish is ... Ford-like.

Agreed.

Sure, if you forget about the bigger, better engines (especially the T5), the avaliablility if AWD on the S40 or the much nicer interior the Volvo enjoys.

Well, I'd mostly agree with that. I know that the C70 and S80 have both been extremely problematic vehicles. However, the S60, which was the first Volvo sedan designed under Ford, is in fact the most reliable car/wagon they've built in several years - the S40 notwisthsatdning because it's so new and the XC90 because it's....not a car, well, not entirely a car, it is S80 based.

They'll make all kinds of bullshit claims to sell their cars. The local BMW dealer swears his cars are superior to Porsches and that the "toyish" X3 is superior to the Touraeg. Steve Grauman

Audi/VW do this quite a bit. The Golf, Jetta, New Beetle, TT and A3 are all on the same platform. The B5 A4 and B5/5.5 Passat were on the same platform and shared *2* engines, the 1.8T and 2.8 V6. Not to mention that Seat and Skoda models are really just VWs with new badging. The 4.2 litre V8 is used by Audi in the A8, A6, S4 and Allroad and by VW in the Toureag and Pheaton. The 2.7T started in the B5 S4 and ended up in the (outgoing) A6 and Allroad.

The Maxima is FWD, actually and the G35 is built on the Altima's platform, not the Maxima's. Plus the G35 is nicer inside and (oddly) more reasonablly priced for what you get. The G35 is getting a new interior for 2006 models, looks nicer. Steve Grauman

I hope this is sarcasim. The Focus holds some ridiculous record, something like