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Originally Posted by harcos
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This is one of the most exhaustive reviews ever done on these cars.
I've never driven the A45S, but I agree with them about the RS3 and M240i.
At first, the Audi wows you with its great and iconic sounding engine and seems like a rocket on wheels, but after a while when you start to push really hard you clearly feel some flaws, such as the annoying turbo-lag, the dated gearbox, the heavy nose and the strange behavior of the 4WD system too governed by electronics and little by mechanics, sometimes understeering, sometimes oversteering, sometimes neutral, never the same, all but predictable and definitely front biased. Exciting at the beginning and always very fast, but boring and not much entertaining after a while, too "fake".
The BMW is totally the opposite, it feels very composed right away and may seem slow, dull, but when you really start driving you discover a beautifully balanced chassis, a RWD feel with no gimmick driving modes to activate and a real mechanical interaction, and the well known lovely straight 6, strong but gentle and always ready to push (but in a softer way than Audi's angry 5-pot). It definitely requires more time to be discovered and appreciated.
And yes, a well-tuned torque converter transmission can be better than a dated dual-clutch box.
In any case, I don't see any possible comparison to the M4 or 8 Series; they're too far apart in terms of performance and handling (M4) and luxury (8er), respectively. The only common point is that all three are small and uncomfortable in the back seats, despite their size.