posted 06-06-2001 01:45 PM            

I currently own a '98 Integra TypeR (Love this car!). But since I got married I have to get a more "practical" car. I don't want to loose any of the performance I get from my little rice cooker but since I have to go for a more practical 4 door car I narrowed my choices down to 3 cars: 2002 Acura 3.2TL TypeS w/NAV, 2000 Audi S4 and 1998 BMW M3. As you can tell by my selections these are all performance cars within the same price range (with insurance of course the Audi and BMW are more).

My main focus is performance and comfort. I love the way the interior of the TLS looks and feels, I'm also a strong believer of Acura performance and service. Then I drove an M3, the car was lighter and handled nice and tight. The only problem was during a snow the car didn't do so well (the torque had the car spinning all over the place) and it is an older car. Enter the Audi S4, AWD gave it a clear advantage in the snow but what concerned me was it had less horsepower (250HP vs. TLS @ 260HP . . . M3 240 HP) than the TLS and weighed a bit more. To it's advantage it did have more torque.

I am now at the crossroads of my decision and lean heavily toward the TLS and S4. I haven't driven the TLS in "slippery" conditions such as snow or "new" rain, so I was hoping you guys could help shed some insight and give your opinions on this whole thing.