I agree that the BMW from factory feels a little tighter than the G sedan and the auto G coupe. My feeling was that, tires and suspension can be upgraded easily if I were to track my car more often but it's much harder to get more power unless you have turbo. Since the G35 is priced like a 325/328, it has about 80HP advantage. The big seller for me was the Brembo on the G35 6MT. Both the G and the 3-series have AWD option w/out the massive overhang the Audi have ;-).
I agree with you about DSG. DSG is an amazing transmission and would make it very easy to get peak performance every time. However, it will never give me the grin I get heel-toeing into corners. It's definitely a hard choice for me.
Audi has started correcting most of my gripes in the past, namely.
1) Starting with the RS4, quattro is now more rear-wheel biased.
2) TT is now a pretty good, light(er) weight car with better distribution.
3) the latest S5/A5 and next gen A4/S4 has corrected the overhang and also made quattro more rear wheel bias.
4) The next generation s4 most likely will return to a bi-turbo setup, and hopefully the rs4 will be a turbo charged v8. Odd that the current S5 will be V8 normally aspirated while the s4 will be bi-turbo. But turbo ==> nice aftermarkets mods ==> creating an insane sleeper grocery getter ==> unfortunately, ultimately leads to AoA voiding warranties.
Sorry, I do have to draw a line. Except for the Nissan GTR, no other car in we mentioned above in awd format I think matches audi's quattro. Buying an audi without quattro is like buying a male pet for reproducing and neutering it at the same time. Why do people buy an an audi with FWD is beyond me.
Audi also changed their lineup. The correct competition right now is
Audi A4/a5 3.2 <–> BMW 328 <–>no direct infinit <—>Lexus IS250
Audi S4/S5 <–> BMW 335 <–>Infiniti G37 <–>Lexus IS350
Audi RS4/RS5(expected) <—>E90 BMW M3 sedan(expected)/coupe <—>no current Infiniti <—> IS-F
If I was in the market for a performance car, I would consider the e90 m3 or the S5 (though in different leagues… Unfortunately, some of us wants to retire earlier and spend more time with family, and don't have millions in stock options to throw around, and are just peons working as an average joe at a company. So, some of our dreams will have to be deferred to when/and if excessive consumption can be realized.
On the economics side, it will be interesting to see how these foreign car companies keep pace with the falling dollar. I can see Audi start exporting from their factories in Shanghai (oh god no), BMW start using their US manufacturing sites more in N Carolina (great, good old fashion X5-like quality labor from america (sacasm)), and Nissan shift production down here. We might end up with radiators from AC/Delco, and oil filters from Fram in German cars, leaving only the real uber sports cars attainable Germany that only rich people can afford to buy. See, the falling dollar really hurts us in ways that really matter:) Good thing I stocked up on every maintanence parts for my audi for the next 5 years. I'm not even kidding, prices of parts have gone up significantly.
