congrats sir.. you wont regret. The first car i bought was a stick and i drove it home having never driven a stick before. its really not that complicated.

 

believe me you wont regret getting stick. My friend last year got a gto in auto and some ******* takes off with a gto in stick, and he just shakes his head and says why did i get auto. So believe me you will love it.

 

I never use the brakes in my Tiptronic because it is a Tiptronic, you can downshift to engine brake as easily as a stick.

The difference in performance is also questionable because to really see the benefit of a stick you have to be a better than average driver. Just having a stick doesn't == better performance. Even if you are an amazing driver, the performance gain is negligable in a car like this. Then add the fact that the Tip comes with the steering wheel paddle shifters, which means that the time it takes you to move your hand to the stick after a sharp turn that requires both hands on the wheel, is outpaced by the paddle on the wheel and any lag that is inherint in the Tip shift is negated.

This review of the S4 (http://www.speedsportlife.com/not-yo...E2%80%99s-v-8/) will **** off all the stick lovers here since it advocates that the Tip S4 is a better bet (at least in this 2005.5 version, which I own) because the clutch is vague, and the revs drop too quickly because of the light flywheel. They also point out that this is due to the gears being to short.

I think there is a very religeous and knee-jerk love of stick that is not really based on experience. How many people here have actually driven both?

Here are some other reasons to go Tip:

Better gas mileage.
Better in an emmergency, if you become sick or injured, how many people can drive your stick to safety?
Cheaper repairs.. No clutch to go out on you on a Tip.
Traffic, as you noted. I live in Westchester, NY, so I feel you on this one.

This is not a GTO. This is not an automatic, its a Tip. The comparison just shouldn't be made.

Drive both and then decide. Don't get a stick because you think it's automagically "cool". And don't do it because of peer pressure or people who say a sports car can't be a Tiptronic.

I have news for you people, there are Formula1 cars made by Audi that are using the DSG transmission, which is fully automatic and outperforms any human shifting a stick. Granted, DSG beats the **** out Tip since its a true double electronic clutch, but this notion of sports cars only being Tip is just pure bullshit. More evidence? The Mercedes Mclaren, a $450k car that is not even available in anything but a Tiptronic-like transmission.

 

I was also under the imprssion that manuals are better for gas mileage......

 

You can get better mileages out of manuals. But somebody is suppose to tell this our right foot.

 

haha well you can do that with a tip as well... but maybe youre not inclined as much because its NOT AS FUN!!!

 

No you're missing the point, being that clutches go more often than automatic trannys. How often do you hear someone complaining that they burned out their automatic tranny?

 

Theoretically you can in general, but it would require relentless discipline and attention and it would be hard to beat the advanced DSP programs that are in these high end cars today.

The point is with a Tip you can just get the better mileage without thinking about it, and then have a lot of fun shifting when you want to. Its a great combination of flexibility.

I sat in hours of traffic today in I95, I can tell you that I am glad as hell I have a Tip. And yet later in the evening when the roads cleared up and I took to the local twisties, the Tip shifter gave me all the driving fun I needed for the day.

If you want to go Stick, by all means do it. All I am saying is not to believe this hype that unless you get a manual then you are making a huge mistake. That is just flat wrong.

 

OK agree - however for me a manual is much more fun and engaging. And I think your hp (Stage 3) mods are more limited with a tip...

 

Yeah that's true, modding the Tip does not bring quite the gains as it does with the manual when chipping. But the gains from the chip on the new S4s aren't that amazing are they? Maybe that is a bigger factor for older S4s, Turbos for instance?