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Why not add that 4th car, and make it an "express" car. Meaning heading north it will make the first 4 stops, and then until it hits downtown the 4th car will not have its doors open; as it won't be lined up with a platform. All of a sudden you have added an extra 33% to the C-train capacity. As well, you also get rid of a major problem; I know southbound at Centre Street there's always a wall of people wanting on, but no room on the train. All of a sudden you have a brand new empty car for those people to board.
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Its not something the city will want to do for many reasons. The doors of the 4th car would have to be manually turned on and off for a car by the driver. That will delay other trains. What about people who get on that 4th car that want to get off at Chinook or Vic Park Stampede (where a 3 car train barely fits)? There's no such thing as an express train except for Football games and Hockey games and even that is not really express.
There is no problem with hooking up 4 cars. Every night 6 car trains (limited to a max of 40 km/h) go to Haysboro storage (near Heritage) to the Anderson yards. The substations in that area were upgraded after the SD160s came in and were being blown due to the increased power demand by the SD's. There is not adequate power substations to run SD160s (which are what all the new trains are) at full power with 4 cars. That is the #1 problem. City Hall interlocking and Burnsland Interlocking (around 39th Ave and up to the 42 Ave tunnel) are areas where even now they can't handle full power on 3 car trains. The #2 problem is 4 car platforms. For legal and safety reasons the City won't take the chance that when someone steps off a train that they just fall down.