2004 Audi A4 TDi Sport - Less than shed money

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Hello all.. Long time lurker on PH, pretty much every day! Have now decided to have a brief write up of my (new to me) new daily.

I originally started looking at all sorts of cars - Mini Cooper, Lexus IS250, Civic Type S GT, Volvo S60 (basically something different that I hadn't owned before). After having a wide number of Audi's in the family over the years (A3's, A4's, A6's, A8's etc), and having owned personally a number of A3's, and B6 A4's (2004 1.8T S Line 4dr, 2002 A4 3.0 Quattro Sport Auto Avant), I then went out on the search for an A4 B6 3.0 Quattro again (was made redundant, so no more company car). Couldn't find anything decent which had been cared for. It seems as though far too many 3.0 Quattro's out there have been really badly neglected and loads of them have been stupidly modified (which I hate). After weeks of searching (and viewing some terrible cars), a 2004 B6 TDi appeared on Gumtree with a very basic advert, and quite poor photos. The seller already loads of calls for the car already, including a few by dealers saying that they would pay the full asking price, transfer the money to him there and then and get the car picked up by a transport company. He told them he would think about it. I then spent a whole hour on the phone to the seller (who was such a nice guy) and we both shared our love for Audi's. He said the condition was "good", but had a few marks. After a bit of persuasion, he agreed that he would rather sell it to me than a dealer and wanted it to go to a good home.. What an absolute result! Oh, and I got it for less than shed money too at £1,300!

2004/04 A4 1.9 TDi Sport 4dr 130bhp 6 speed manual (totally factory and original - no stupid mods)
Ming Blue with Black Leather
2 owners from new (the chap owned it for 12 years)
Done 150k miles (I've seen these things do 300k)
Always garaged, always service on time. Even the cambelt/waterpump was done 2k miles ago!

When I viewed the car (well, actually I knew I was taking the car home with me before I even got there!), the chap pointed out scratches on the car, and that the o/s/f bumper had been smart repaired. Errr, it's a 2004 car with 150k miles - I'm not expecting it to be perfect. However, the car was amazing condition for the age and miles, just dull paintwork. He even had overmats OVER the original overmats! Paint was a little flat, but I knew I could resurrect that. Didn't bother driving it, just said "here's the money, lets crack on". On the drive home, I noticed a few issues:

Droning noise above 40mph (wheel bearing - I've booked this in with my garage to be sorted - common Audi issue)
When you open the drivers door, the interior lights or DIS doesn't recognise it's open (from my research, seems to be a switch of some kind in the door lock mechanism - does anyone know how easy this is to fix)?
All 4 tyres were some chinese rubbish (I've now replaced these with continentals)
Rear discs and pads are very low (booked in to be replaced)
All 4 alloys are corroded (can anyone recommend a decent wheel refurb company near Buckinghamshire/Berkshire that can do same day wheel refurbs)?
Centre caps are also quite badly corroded
Paintwork was flat all over (almost as though it had never seen any car wax in it's life) - So today, I spent 6 long hours cleaning, polishing, waxing and all that malarkey - and it's now looking absolutely amazing! See photos below.

I used G3 compound to remove all of the light scratches, and AutoGlym Ultra HD Wax to finish it off (this is by far the best finishing wax - have used this for years. I highly rate it. Bloody expensive though!). The interior is unmarked, not even any wear on the drivers bolster. For less than shed money at £1,300, it was an absolute bargain. No wonder the dealers were jumping all over it. Usually I wouldn't spend much money sorting out the above issues on a shed, but I reckon this one totally deserves it.







I think this is going to be a long term shed for me..

[NGRhodes]

That's scrubbed up well.
I have a 2.5 TDI B7 Avant that had neglected bodywork which also polished up well, planning on giving it a clay soon.

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Thanks! I've never used a clay bar before. Does it make a huge difference? Might do that in a few months time, however will have to do some research on it beforehand. I've always used Autoglym products but they are sooo expensive (but they make the car look great).

Any recommendations on a decent clay bar?

[NGRhodes]

I've never done before, was thinking of using a Clay Mitt or Sponge rather than a bar.

[W00DY]

That looks very smart and definitely worthy of some TLC to get it to an even higher standard. My shed Golf has given me an appreciation for these PD engines and I'm usually not a diesel fan.

Clay is great and quite enjoyable to do even as someone who doesn't like cleaning cars. Not only does it pick up loads of crap from the paint and in the crevices that are hard to get into, but it makes it super slippery and smooth.

[dandam]

Get a clay mit, plenty out there, I use a G7 one. Bucket of warm water and just rub the bodywork, makes a lovely job, very simple, much easier than a clay bar.
The door switch is easy enough, I had to do the drivers side on on my 2002 A6, took about 25 minutes and all sorted.

Love the A4, the vag cars of late 90s / early 00s to me are still about as good as it ever gets

Edited by dandam on Sunday 2nd August 20:39

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Silly question. After using a clay mitt (or related), would I still need to wax it after?

@ dandam - the door switch thing, do I need to replace to whole door lock, or just the switch inside it? I'm not that mechanically minded, and not sure if I would be capable of doing it myself. Will try and find a step by step or video somewhere. Also, do you recall roughly how much the part was by any chance?

[NGRhodes]

After clay, you will need to polish to correct any scratches as required and then wax.

[dandam]

ads_4116 said:

Silly question. After using a clay mitt (or related), would I still need to wax it after?

@ dandam - the door switch thing, do I need to replace to whole door lock, or just the switch inside it? I'm not that mechanically minded, and not sure if I would be capable of doing it myself. Will try and find a step by step or video somewhere. Also, do you recall roughly how much the part was by any chance?

The clay mit removes the dirt from the paint that won’t shift by washing, you’ll need to polish / wax or seal the paint afterwards.

Yes, it’s the whole lock mechanism that you replace - remove the door card, unbolt the window frame, then the door lock is removed by a few bolts, detach the cable loom and the rod for the handle. There are videos on YouTube, take a look on there.

One tip is to use a marker pen to mark up where the window frame is so that you line it up ok afterwards, if not you may get a bit of wind noise

[bearman68]

It's very common for the wiring loom to fail in the door hinge. Replacement loom is the only realistic answer if this is the case.
Wiring failure is much much, much more common than lock failure.

You'll enjoy the wiring loom connections in the A frame door post.

Looks OK though - it about the last of the half decent VAG group stuff, much after is complete dross.

Best of luck with it.