2017 Audi S4 Exhaust Sound: Just Average Turbo Pops and Growls

For now, let's just focus on the exhaust sound. A new S4 doesn't come around every week. Two generations ago, it had a 4.2-liter FSI engine, which was then replaced by a supercharged V6. Now, it's gone to a simple twin-scroll turbo setup, just like the BMW 335i/340i.

It does have some typical Audi character, but the growls and pops are the same as on the S4. Indeed, you can barely tell that the engine is a 6-cylinder one.

Something else we don't enjoy is the ticking sound of the injection system that can be heard over the sound of the exhaust at idle.

So is there a reason to pick this over the 2017 Audi S3. Probably not from a dynamic point of view, since going from a 2-liter to 3-liter only grants you 44 extra horsepower. Sure, it's rear-biased, but you'll need an optional mechanical differential to make the best of that.

Wagons are very popular in Germany, and the S4 Avant has all the practicality of its A4 counterpart.

The verdict. This might just be one of those cars that you can't understand from videos, like the BMW M4. We got a little hint of that in the description of the video, which was shot by Automann-TV: "The exhaust sound might not fully come across on the video but especially in the low rpms it has a very deep voice and grunt which is somehow similar to what the famous VW Golf V R32 had...very, very nice! Once you hit higher rpm, the sound is still very decent but never gets loud or annoying. Overall the car feels great with its agile handling (Quattro differential) and the super-smooth shifting 8-speed transmission."