RE: Audi S4: Spotted
Thursday 10th May 2018
Audi S4: Spotted
Well, manual V8 saloons aren't going to be around forever, especially at £4k...
Without wishing to sound too bleak about it, there's an unstoppable trend in the automotive industry that ought to concern us all. Downsizing, combined with the rise of the turbocharger and the drawn-out demise of the manual transmission has virtually signalled the end for the venerable combination of atmospheric petrol motor and DIY gears. Granted, the march of technology means we've not really suffered a downfall in quality - but we're all about choice at PH, and beyond the prospect of a new Ford Mustang, what other possibilities now exist?
As a consequence, many fairly ordinary cars have now become rather more appealing, often for what lies under the bonnet. Less than 15 years ago it was possible to buy either a VW Golf or an Alfa 147 with a pair of different 3.2-litre (!) V6s. A Rover 75 had a 4.6-litre V8 for a period. There was a Subaru Legacy with a 3.0-litre flat-six. And, of course, there were a pair of Audi RS4s with different power outputs of 4.2-litre V8 engine.
Now of course the RS4 will hog all the attention when it comes to remembering fast Audis, and rightly so - because it proved they could actually be quite good. This story is not going to contest that - the B7 RS4 is a better car than its S4 contemporary you see here - but then an RS4 isn't £4k now, is it?
Perversely, what held the S4 back dynamically just a few years back - having that honking great V8 so far forward in the chassis - is now a big part of the appeal. Sure, it's a bit nose heavy and lacks the agility of the newer cars with Sport Differentials, but no-one looking at this type of vehicle is after the last word in handling flair. You'd probably just get an M3 if that were the case, and spend a lot more money.
What this S4 offers for half the price of a new supermini is a thunderous V8 (breathing through a Milltek exhaust, too), a six-speed manual gearbox (very rare in these) and the sort of minimalist, eye-pleasing design that Audi has been doing so well for more than 20 years now. In grey with the standard wheels, it's the definition of unassuming when you bear in mind it makes 350hp.
Sure, for just £4k it's not going to be the best S4 in the world - some may shirk at more than 100,000 miles, and bits of it will feel tired. That being said, it's just been serviced, boasts new discs and pads all round and looks straight enough from the pics. Plus, as a relatively early B7 S4, the road tax is cheaper than on the later versions. And, well, it's sort of the only manual V8 S4 saloon currently on PH...
So what we have is a rare, stylish, fast saloon with the kind of driver focused powertrain we're not going to see again in new cars. And it costs £4,000. An S4 is never going to set the world alight, but for a reminder of the halcyon,V8-filled days of, er, 2004, it looks like just the ticket.
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Discussion
Great cars, had two of them over the years, however...
Check the timing chains - its a 3K job, it lunches the guides if not looked after
Take it off the long-life servicing plan
Check the Clutch Flywheel if a manual, certain to go after 100,000 miles and thats a grand
Check the auxiliary radiator
Make sure it has RNS-E
Suspension gets a hard time at the front with the V8
Car is nose heavy and understeers, if you slap an RS4 ARB on it you solve a lot of those issues
Recaro's are just the most comfortable seats, better than the ones in my V10 S8 were
Coilpacks are a consumable, there was a recall, but chances are they were all eaten by the car anyway
Engine is pre-fsi so no carbon buildup
370bhp can be had with a set of milltek downpipes and a non-res backbox when mapped
JHM are your ideal source for tuning info, superchargers especially
In the real world, a tuned S4 can keep up with a coked up RS4 no problem
Check the timing chains - its a 3K job, it lunches the guides if not looked after
Take it off the long-life servicing plan
Check the Clutch Flywheel if a manual, certain to go after 100,000 miles and thats a grand
Check the auxiliary radiator
Make sure it has RNS-E
Suspension gets a hard time at the front with the V8
Car is nose heavy and understeers, if you slap an RS4 ARB on it you solve a lot of those issues
Recaro's are just the most comfortable seats, better than the ones in my V10 S8 were
Coilpacks are a consumable, there was a recall, but chances are they were all eaten by the car anyway
Engine is pre-fsi so no carbon buildup
370bhp can be had with a set of milltek downpipes and a non-res backbox when mapped
JHM are your ideal source for tuning info, superchargers especially
In the real world, a tuned S4 can keep up with a coked up RS4 no problem
Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 10th May 09:15
Cambs_Stuart said:
I was looking at S4 avants just yesterday as a possible replacement for my subaru legacy. That's a good checklist, so thank you 1781!
I've been there and believe me, S4 isn't a replacement for a Legacy.Space in the back is almost non-existent. I'm around 6 foot and with the driver's seat set to my driving position I couldn't really sit behind it. Recaros are just too big and interior too tiny. If you're planning to use car seats in the back I'd forget the B6/B7 S4. If you're looking at two people in the front plus luggage then sure. If you want to take 4 people on longer journeys I'd seriously look elsewhere.
B8 is fine as it's a different floorplan.
Bladedancer said:
Cambs_Stuart said:
I was looking at S4 avants just yesterday as a possible replacement for my subaru legacy. That's a good checklist, so thank you 1781!
I've been there and believe me, S4 isn't a replacement for a Legacy.Space in the back is almost non-existent. I'm around 6 foot and with the driver's seat set to my driving position I couldn't really sit behind it. Recaros are just too big and interior too tiny. If you're planning to use car seats in the back I'd forget the B6/B7 S4. If you're looking at two people in the front plus luggage then sure. If you want to take 4 people on longer journeys I'd seriously look elsewhere.
B8 is fine as it's a different floorplan.
I loved my B7 S4 Avant - but it was starting to get expensive and I couldn't justify if even to myself.Can only agree with the previous posts. I had a B7 RS4 Avant for a year and, while I am pretty tall, I didn't find it to be practical at all - rear space in particular is very tight, even without the bucket seats. Heard that the B8s are better.
It was a wonderful car in many other respects though and I've also always liked the S4 variant. Understated.
It was a wonderful car in many other respects though and I've also always liked the S4 variant. Understated.
Quavers said:
The problem with spending £4k on one of these is the likelihood of spending another £4k on repairs.
This exactly. I thought I'd buy a cheap one a few years back... Ended up spending double just on maintenance. Everything engine related is a pig of a job. I can't actually believe how many issues these cars have. Oil leaks, cam chain tensioners failing, scored bores, oil consumption, check valves... and that's just the engine.
If you can do the work yourself then fine. Be prepared to have your wallet raped. But once it's all done you won't have to touch it for another 100k.
Worthwhile engine mods are gutting the precats, exhaust, remap, fitting uprated mounts, aux rad delete, airbox cold air feed, ported inlet manifold with port matched heads, phenolic gaskets, reflectagold wrap, JHM lightweight crank pulley.
This is all relatively easy and inexpensive stuff, and will see you at 400bhp.
Go for magnaflow over miltek. Much better quality and cheaper.
I've still got a bunch of goodies I removed from mine if anyone wants them. Carbon interior trim, 034 Motorsport mounts, ported inlet manifold, a 6 speed gearbox...
This is a B6, not a B7. It would also be a bad investment if the timing service hasn't been done and the seller doesn't mention it so I doubt it has.
Parts alone for the timing service are over a grand and over 2k if you need to replace the mechanical adjusters. Then the book time for labour is 24 hours + any complications in getting everything apart on a 100k+ mile car.
I had mine done at 135k miles (along with some bent valves) and it cost over £6000 at an independent specialist. (You can read what I had done at
https://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/7942...
You need to also get the cylinders checked for wall scoring because this is basically a problem that can't be solved and will see the engine drink oil like petrol. (I think cylinder wall scoring is a result of previous abuse.)
I don't want to put anyone off because it's a great built-to-order car with a design flaw in the way they arranged the engine. But you need to buy one with the timing service done or budget for it in the very near future.
Parts alone for the timing service are over a grand and over 2k if you need to replace the mechanical adjusters. Then the book time for labour is 24 hours + any complications in getting everything apart on a 100k+ mile car.
I had mine done at 135k miles (along with some bent valves) and it cost over £6000 at an independent specialist. (You can read what I had done at
https://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/7942...
You need to also get the cylinders checked for wall scoring because this is basically a problem that can't be solved and will see the engine drink oil like petrol. (I think cylinder wall scoring is a result of previous abuse.)
I don't want to put anyone off because it's a great built-to-order car with a design flaw in the way they arranged the engine. But you need to buy one with the timing service done or budget for it in the very near future.
Edited by cobraBLACK on Thursday 10th May 12:09
1781cc said:
Great cars, had two of them over the years, however... THIS PERSON SPEAKETH THE TRUTH
"Check the timing chains - its a 3K job, it lunches the guides if not looked after"
Agreed, I had this done on mine, £4k
"Take it off the long-life servicing plan"
Agreed, I became obsessed with it's apparent fragility and ended up at about 10 - 15k intervals. In reality the problem here was me not the car.
"Check the Clutch Flywheel if a manual, certain to go after 100,000 miles and thats a grand"
Mine went pop whilst approaching a corner much too quicky to suddenly not have any drive...was not a funny moment and I'm sure my drivers seat never smelled the same after
"Check the auxiliary radiator"
Thankfully changed on the recall
"Car is nose heavy and understeers, if you slap an RS4 ARB on it you solve a lot of those issues"
This is witchcraft and really works
"370bhp can be had with a set of milltek downpipes and a non-res backbox when mapped
JHM are your ideal source for tuning info, superchargers especially"
MRC are also good
I loved mine and put over £100k miles on it but my god it was an expensive car to keep. I had it from 42k miles and suffered all of the big costs, the person who had it off me basically had a new engine. Great cars but eyes need to be wide open"Check the timing chains - its a 3K job, it lunches the guides if not looked after"
Agreed, I had this done on mine, £4k
"Take it off the long-life servicing plan"
Agreed, I became obsessed with it's apparent fragility and ended up at about 10 - 15k intervals. In reality the problem here was me not the car.
"Check the Clutch Flywheel if a manual, certain to go after 100,000 miles and thats a grand"
Mine went pop whilst approaching a corner much too quicky to suddenly not have any drive...was not a funny moment and I'm sure my drivers seat never smelled the same after
"Check the auxiliary radiator"
Thankfully changed on the recall
"Car is nose heavy and understeers, if you slap an RS4 ARB on it you solve a lot of those issues"
This is witchcraft and really works
"370bhp can be had with a set of milltek downpipes and a non-res backbox when mapped
JHM are your ideal source for tuning info, superchargers especially"
MRC are also good
Edited by 1781cc on Thursday 10th May 09:15
Loved mine, bought it at 4 years old, a manual, had it for 7 years, but knew it was time to move it on as it approached 100k and was still running on the original clutch and still had the noisy tensioners on start up.
At anytime it could have caused me a major headache, and a £3-4k bill wasn't something I was prepared to gamble on, when it was only worth around £6k at the time.
Never let me down in that time, and never replaced the aux rads, which was a common occurrence.
It lost (well, rather burnt) oil like the Exxon Valdez in the last 18 months of ownership too, in fact I was topping it up with a litre every 1k miles
At anytime it could have caused me a major headache, and a £3-4k bill wasn't something I was prepared to gamble on, when it was only worth around £6k at the time.
Never let me down in that time, and never replaced the aux rads, which was a common occurrence.
It lost (well, rather burnt) oil like the Exxon Valdez in the last 18 months of ownership too, in fact I was topping it up with a litre every 1k miles
Edited by MattS5 on Thursday 10th May 14:56
Edited by MattS5 on Thursday 10th May 14:57
Krikkit said:
Point of note, aren't the manuals saddled with ridiculously long gearing?
They feel pretty standard to me. The only issue is the shortish 6th gear which affects economy at motorway speed. The autos have a longer final gear to improve on that. Floor it in third gear and this is where you really start to see the sheer power of the 4.2 compared to a smaller turbocharged engine. I used to have a classic WRX and the power-to-weight ratio between them is almost identical but the S4 made the Impreza feel sluggish.MattS5 said:
It lost (well, rather burnt) oil like the Exxon Valdez in the last 18 months of ownership too, in fact I was topping it up with a litre every 1k miles
FYI, that's not normal and indicates a problem. As long as you're on an annual service you should only be topping up (dipstick going from max to min) once a year per oil change (at most).cobraBLACK said:
Krikkit said:
Point of note, aren't the manuals saddled with ridiculously long gearing?
They feel pretty standard to me. The only issue is the shortish 6th gear which affects economy at motorway speed. The autos have a longer final gear to improve on that. Floor it in third gear and this is where you really start to see the sheer power of the 4.2 compared to a smaller turbocharged engine. I used to have a classic WRX and the power-to-weight ratio between them is almost identical but the S4 made the Impreza feel sluggish.Short gearing in 6th which means a motorway cruise is high 2000-3000RPM? Annoying.
hmmmm, this is indeed timely - I'm caught between going with my heart & taking the plunge on a B7 S4 - maybe this one?
https://www.northwestautomobilesltd.co.uk/used-car...
or going with my head and getting a B7 2.0TFSi Limited Special Edition 217 Quattro and a little remap from R-Tech.
decisions, decisions
and any thoughts very welcome.
Run for the hills! And when you get there keep running! I've got quite a bit of first hand experience with one of these and its been nothing but a nightmare. My mate bought one around this time last year. I went with him to view it and aside from a few stone chips and a kerbed wheel it looked an honest car. The test drive went flawlessly and a deal was done. The first issue reared its head on the return drive, it started misfiring. A quick call to the seller had the usual "no mate, never known that happen" response. We got it home and it looked to be a dodgy coil pack, which was replaced and all seemed well. A few days later my mate noticed some oil under it, so we pulled the undertrays off to find it looking like the Sea Empress, oil absolutely everywhere. The seller must have removed and cleaned the undertrays before we viewed it because they were spotless when we got under there at his house. We tried diagnosing the leak and couldn't get to the bottom of it, it seemed to be coming from just about every possible place it could leak from.
A few weeks of running around showed more and more issues with it. As well as leaking oil, it was also burning gallons of the stuff, blue smoke on start up and on the overrun, plus running stupidly rich and kicking plumes of soot out of it every time it was opened up.
Everything on these seems to be an engine out job, so after much debate we reluctantly made the decision to pull the lump out and do it properly. This was a fair bit of work but not as bad as expected and we had it out over a weekend and stripped of ancillaries pretty quickly. Carried out a full top end rebuild, all new valve stem seals, new head gaskets etc, everything cleaned of oil residue and carbon deposits before it went back together. Replaced the plastic valve guides and retimed it all as per the book, replaced the sump gasket, valley pan gaskets and resealed all the timing case covers with the correct liquid gasket. We also found that some animal in the past had gutted both the primary and secondary cats, which was why it was running so rich. A set of second hand cats was sourced and we gutted the primaries only before refitting.
Engine back in and at first all seemed well, but after a few weeks the problems started again. The oil level light came on again, and when we checked the engine it was found to be bone dry on the outside, so it looks like its burning it again. We're still getting puffs of blue smoke randomly on start up. The PCV valve has been replaced (twice, the first one was a Chinese knock off which for some reason made a high pitched, rhythmic woo woo noise! Cured by fitting a proper one) and all the pipework de-gunked. The bottom end looked fine when we had the engine apart, no signs of scoring at all, not that there is a lot you can do with them if they are scored because they are Alusil coated, so you cant hone them otherwise you take the coating off. Likewise they cant be rebored and oversized pistons fitted. My mate is currently running it on 5w-40 oil, but JHM (?) had on their website to use 10W-60, so that is something we are going to try.
Last weekend we decided to compression test it again, all the values fell within Audi tolerances so we're at a loss now. Whilst doing this we noticed the passenger side plugs were really sooty again, plus the exhaust for that bank is really sooty and the exhaust gases coming out of there were much cooler than the drivers side, so it looks to be over fueling on that bank, hopefully this is just a dodgy O2 sensor. It also developed another misfire and looks like a coil pack is going again.
It's latest trick isn't engine related but is another head scratcher. Whenever you touch the brakes when turning the car at low speed, or when braking hard enough to make the front dive a bit it makes a horrible, graunching, grinding noise that we haven't been able to pin point the source of yet. It sounds like the steering rack is trying to escape from the car!
I'm gutted for my mate, he's really at his wits end with it now. He loves the car, and when it's running well it is a nice car and goes nicely. It's not as fast as my M3, but it goes well enough and makes a lovely V8 growl through the Miltek exhaust. The interior is full black leather recaros with the carbon trim so it's a very nice place to spend time. After what I've experienced with my mates one, I wouldn't have one if you gave me one, and reading online it seems like all the issues we have come across are pretty common unfortunately.
A few weeks of running around showed more and more issues with it. As well as leaking oil, it was also burning gallons of the stuff, blue smoke on start up and on the overrun, plus running stupidly rich and kicking plumes of soot out of it every time it was opened up.
Everything on these seems to be an engine out job, so after much debate we reluctantly made the decision to pull the lump out and do it properly. This was a fair bit of work but not as bad as expected and we had it out over a weekend and stripped of ancillaries pretty quickly. Carried out a full top end rebuild, all new valve stem seals, new head gaskets etc, everything cleaned of oil residue and carbon deposits before it went back together. Replaced the plastic valve guides and retimed it all as per the book, replaced the sump gasket, valley pan gaskets and resealed all the timing case covers with the correct liquid gasket. We also found that some animal in the past had gutted both the primary and secondary cats, which was why it was running so rich. A set of second hand cats was sourced and we gutted the primaries only before refitting.
Engine back in and at first all seemed well, but after a few weeks the problems started again. The oil level light came on again, and when we checked the engine it was found to be bone dry on the outside, so it looks like its burning it again. We're still getting puffs of blue smoke randomly on start up. The PCV valve has been replaced (twice, the first one was a Chinese knock off which for some reason made a high pitched, rhythmic woo woo noise! Cured by fitting a proper one) and all the pipework de-gunked. The bottom end looked fine when we had the engine apart, no signs of scoring at all, not that there is a lot you can do with them if they are scored because they are Alusil coated, so you cant hone them otherwise you take the coating off. Likewise they cant be rebored and oversized pistons fitted. My mate is currently running it on 5w-40 oil, but JHM (?) had on their website to use 10W-60, so that is something we are going to try.
Last weekend we decided to compression test it again, all the values fell within Audi tolerances so we're at a loss now. Whilst doing this we noticed the passenger side plugs were really sooty again, plus the exhaust for that bank is really sooty and the exhaust gases coming out of there were much cooler than the drivers side, so it looks to be over fueling on that bank, hopefully this is just a dodgy O2 sensor. It also developed another misfire and looks like a coil pack is going again.
It's latest trick isn't engine related but is another head scratcher. Whenever you touch the brakes when turning the car at low speed, or when braking hard enough to make the front dive a bit it makes a horrible, graunching, grinding noise that we haven't been able to pin point the source of yet. It sounds like the steering rack is trying to escape from the car!
I'm gutted for my mate, he's really at his wits end with it now. He loves the car, and when it's running well it is a nice car and goes nicely. It's not as fast as my M3, but it goes well enough and makes a lovely V8 growl through the Miltek exhaust. The interior is full black leather recaros with the carbon trim so it's a very nice place to spend time. After what I've experienced with my mates one, I wouldn't have one if you gave me one, and reading online it seems like all the issues we have come across are pretty common unfortunately.
Krikkit said:
Short gearing in 6th which means a motorway cruise is high 2000-3000RPM? Annoying.
It is a bit but it'll do mid-twenties MPG on a run whereas the auto will do closer to 30 apparently. You don't have to change down if you want to 'manouvre' though. Actually you rarely have to change down anyway; there's so much torque.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff