Hi,

I live in the U.S., and I drove a '97 E36 M3 3.2 (well over ten years ago now), and it was the greatest car I've ever owned. I've since gone through a period of "sensible cars", and now I've go the bug again. I loved that M3, but the current M3 is a bit high on the hog for me, and let's face it: I'm getting older. I can't take the bang-bang all the time.

I've recently test-driven a 2010 S4, in both transmission configurations, and am largely sold on the DSG/S tronic version. The burping noise under hard accelartion when shifting takes some getting used to it, but my wife said the same thing about me, and she finds my burps endearing now.

I have a few nagging questions for which I haven't gotten any real answers from the dealerships I've visited. The folks I talked to at various dealerships ranged from ignorant (one claimed that he drove the 2010 S4 S-tronic and found it to be very unresponsive compared to the manual. Uh, right.) to fairly knowledgeable but not quite as deep as I needed. So, here we go.

#1
Is there any customization available for S-tronic operation, in any of its modes, via MMI, or some other tool? I'm looking for shift-timing, control of auto-shift decisions (down or up), etc.

#2
I'm not much of a stop-light dragster, so the lack of launch control doesn't bother me one whit, but I'm vaguely curious to know if there's any aftermarket mod for this, as I have a friend who scoffs at its lack of this feature?

#3
I find it somewhat infuriating that car manufacturers don't provide easy-to-find operational manuals for these things that one can download and peruse oneself, but that seems par for the course for all automakers. Anybody know where to find an operational manual for a S4 that covers the MMI features in detail?

#4 Drive Select. I drove a S4 without it, and found it just fine on sub-par pavement, but I'm thinking about the wife on this one. Does anyone find it particularly effective?

#5 Wheel Selection. Car manufacturers are so excited to show of the way their wheels look, but none of them see to think to provide tech specs for them. One thing I learned with my M3 was that reducing unsprung weight paid great dividends in handling. Anybody know where to get the tech specs on the S4 wheel options available from Audi? I know most people who care about such things go out and just buy a particular set of wheels 3rd party, but I'd like to pick a good fit from Audi if I get that far.

If anybody here has some good first- or second-hand experience on any of these points, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

-Scott