B8 S4 Ownership

Author
Discussion

bungle

1,874 posts

239 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
Easternlight said:
How old is the car?
I've got the mot soon so need to find out if it will fail on this?
2010. Hadn't thought of MoT angle, good point.

catso

14,771 posts

266 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
bungle said:
Easternlight said:
How old is the car?
I've got the mot soon so need to find out if it will fail on this?
2010. Hadn't thought of MoT angle, good point.
My Son's Polo failed the MOT as one of the rear doors wouldn't open.

I asked the garage to confirm as I couldn't find anything about it in the online MOT rules but they insisted that it needed to open for the test, they said for 'safety' reasons, e.g. someone in the rear in an accident or fire?


RammyMP

6,729 posts

152 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
bungle said:
Strange one this afternoon...

Unlocked the car, and the drivers door wouldn't open. Every other door OK, boot OK, but not the drivers door. Wasn't frozen, was quite mild at the time. So I got in the passenger side, and opened the drivers door from the inside.

Been fine since.

I've had a door lock go before (on a Golf) but then I couldn't open from the outside or the inside. So I don't know what the issue was today, or if it will happen again!

Any ideas?
My old A5 did that, I was 150 miles from home thinking 'st, how do I get in!?!'. I held unlock to drop the window and pulled the handle from the inside to get in. It was ok for the rest of the day after that. When I got home I sprayed WD40 into the handle and it didn't do it again.

Easternlight

3,424 posts

143 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
catso said:
bungle said:
Easternlight said:
How old is the car?
I've got the mot soon so need to find out if it will fail on this?
2010. Hadn't thought of MoT angle, good point.
My Son's Polo failed the MOT as one of the rear doors wouldn't open.

I asked the garage to confirm as I couldn't find anything about it in the online MOT rules but they insisted that it needed to open for the test, they said for 'safety' reasons, e.g. someone in the rear in an accident or fire?
Would the door not open from the inside? Mine will so I'm hoping I'll be OK as it opens fine with the handle inside, just like a car without central locking, remember those lol!

daveydees

32 posts

115 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
I've had a similar issue on my old B8 A4. There's a little plastic thing inside the handle that can go and render it useless from the outside. It'll be intermittent at first and then it'll just not work at all. Not sure of the cost to fix as mine was done under warranty.


bungle said:
Strange one this afternoon...

Unlocked the car, and the drivers door wouldn't open. Every other door OK, boot OK, but not the drivers door. Wasn't frozen, was quite mild at the time. So I got in the passenger side, and opened the drivers door from the inside.

Been fine since.

I've had a door lock go before (on a Golf) but then I couldn't open from the outside or the inside. So I don't know what the issue was today, or if it will happen again!

Any ideas?

bungle

1,874 posts

239 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
daveydees said:
I've had a similar issue on my old B8 A4. There's a little plastic thing inside the handle that can go and render it useless from the outside. It'll be intermittent at first and then it'll just not work at all. Not sure of the cost to fix as mine was done under warranty.
Very useful, thanks. Mine's also under warranty. Did you have to wait until it completely went to get it changed (on warranty)?

I bet they'll say "yes sir it will completely lock you out of the car at some point, and we know that will be a complete pain, but we can't replace it until it actually fails completely...".

catso

14,771 posts

266 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
Easternlight said:
catso said:
bungle said:
Easternlight said:
How old is the car?
I've got the mot soon so need to find out if it will fail on this?
2010. Hadn't thought of MoT angle, good point.
My Son's Polo failed the MOT as one of the rear doors wouldn't open.

I asked the garage to confirm as I couldn't find anything about it in the online MOT rules but they insisted that it needed to open for the test, they said for 'safety' reasons, e.g. someone in the rear in an accident or fire?
Would the door not open from the inside? Mine will so I'm hoping I'll be OK as it opens fine with the handle inside, just like a car without central locking, remember those lol!
No, it wouldn't open at all.

daveydees

32 posts

115 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
bungle said:
Very useful, thanks. Mine's also under warranty. Did you have to wait until it completely went to get it changed (on warranty)?

I bet they'll say "yes sir it will completely lock you out of the car at some point, and we know that will be a complete pain, but we can't replace it until it actually fails completely...".
Nah, I mentioned it when it went in for a service one time and they knew what it was straight away. At that point it was just intermittent but I had to book it in at a later date for whatever reason. By the time it went in a couple of weeks later it had stopped working altogether.

Easternlight

3,424 posts

143 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
catso said:
Easternlight said:
catso said:
bungle said:
Easternlight said:
How old is the car?
I've got the mot soon so need to find out if it will fail on this?
2010. Hadn't thought of MoT angle, good point.
My Son's Polo failed the MOT as one of the rear doors wouldn't open.

I asked the garage to confirm as I couldn't find anything about it in the online MOT rules but they insisted that it needed to open for the test, they said for 'safety' reasons, e.g. someone in the rear in an accident or fire?
Would the door not open from the inside? Mine will so I'm hoping I'll be OK as it opens fine with the handle inside, just like a car without central locking, remember those lol!
No, it wouldn't open at all.
Yes that would be a fail.
Just messaged my nephew who's a MOT tester and he say's as long as the door can be unlocked and then opened from inside and out it will pass. thumbup

steve2

1,771 posts

217 months

Friday 27th January 2017
quotequote all
Door locks failing on Audis are well documented, had them fail on my old A4 and on my A6

apreading

49 posts

89 months

Saturday 28th January 2017
quotequote all
I think the handle inside pulls a wire/lever to unlock the door. The central locking uses a servo to pull the same wire/lever. If the servo goes bad then it cant pull the wire/lever but the manual system inside still can. It should work using the key in the lock if its the driver's door too. Apparently this is very common and afflicted lots of VW cars, not just the A4 and from B6 era onwards, although I got lucky and mine were OK for 13 years of ownership.

Our earlier model Polo uses a vacuum pipe to do the locks, which also has failures but in that case they are usually down to a vacuum pipe that has come off or split/cracked. Cheaper to fix than modern servo driven systems though.

JonV8V

7,175 posts

123 months

Tuesday 31st January 2017
quotequote all
Had the EPC light on twice yesterday (plus running like a dog) following spirited driving on my B8.5 S4, both times cleared with a power off/on. Plenty of discussion pointing to coil packs which is a cheap fix but most of the Internet chatter seems to apply to earlier cars. I've only just had the car back from an independent who's been working on the gearbox for a couple of weeks but I doubt they've been anywhere near this side of the engine. Ive plugged a code reader in (not a vag-com) and no errors are showing. Thoughts? It's just out of warranty unfortunately.

bungle

1,874 posts

239 months

Sunday 5th February 2017
quotequote all
Finding this really annoying recently... I put a long playlist on my ipod, but if I don't use the car for a couple of days it seems to go back to the 1st song on the playlist. But if it hasn't been that long since I last used it it'll resume where i left off. First world problems eh?

Almost due a service. £225 seems a little rich for what is just an oil and filter change really. (Audi fixed price servicing). They just loads of other stuff, but it's just really visual checks. And they have the cheek to put "Audi stamp" on the list of things they do!!

bungle

1,874 posts

239 months

Sunday 5th February 2017
quotequote all
And going on the Audi service website, my 2 nearest dealers have no available dates at all (my only option ticked was "interim service", but no dates offered whether I do drop off or while you wait).

Not even an option for courtesy car, dealer pick-up, drop me off somewhere, etc. Oh, they make it so easy rolleyes

So guess I will have to phone up... get through to a call centre... < sigh >

jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
Changing the subject, I sadly had to go to a funeral over the weekend, a round trip of 290 miles. I got 36(uk)mpg, which impressed me.

Cruise control, sat at 83mph pretty much the entire run.

Yes, the entire trip was like this:


Edited by jimmyjimjim on Monday 6th February 03:46

MattS5

1,896 posts

190 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
jimmyjimjim said:
Changing the subject, I sadly had to go to a funeral over the weekend, a round trip of 290 miles. I got 36(uk)mpg, which impressed me.

Cruise control, sat at 83mph pretty much the entire run.

Yes, the entire trip was like this:


Edited by jimmyjimjim on Monday 6th February 03:46
Sorry to hear about eh funeral, but the MPG is a result.
I've never ever been in the 30's, my best ever is 29 point something.
It seems to average around 21mpg

Adrian E

3,248 posts

175 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
MattS5 said:
Sorry to hear about eh funeral, but the MPG is a result.
I've never ever been in the 30's, my best ever is 29 point something.
It seems to average around 21mpg
I think Jimmy's is a facelift, which will account for any difference. The earlier cars are much heavier on fuel

catso

14,771 posts

266 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
36mpg sounds great, I've not got much above 30 but then not done a long, uninterrupted run either. But at around 2k rpm at 80mph I would hope for decent MPG if the trip was smooth enough.

fastgerman

1,911 posts

194 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
Tyre help needed please:

2 fronts to be changed on B8.5 Black Edition with 19" rotor wheels.

Continentals on at present, but looking for something with a wider tyre wall so kerbing is less likely.

In addition, I noticed the car tramlining alot after the tyres were half way through their tread. On any other car, I'd say I have 5k miles left on the tyres. Perhaps the tracking is out...

Tyres are 255 35 19. Tyre guy asked me if they were AO or R01?

Anyway, suggestions please :-)

Edited by fastgerman on Monday 6th February 11:06

fastgerman

1,911 posts

194 months

Monday 6th February 2017
quotequote all
In addition, general winge:

Does anyone use Audi Guildford (Lookers) ?

Why can I not speak to anyone in Service? This has now happened twice for my old S5 (quote for bodywork) and current S4 (tyre, tracking and refurb advice). I get passed to somebody in Glasgow who knows nothing about cars, can give me no advice and just passes me around departments, which all go to voicemail.

As my car is a keeper, I don't think its going to Audi for its next service, its probably going to be maintained by VAG specialists from now on.

Anyway, tyre advice please :-)