potential s4 owner

[danb1977]

Hi! New to the forum and was looking for some advice. Have looked at a 53 plate s4 4.2 avant. Car is really clean and has all the kit! Full leather, sat navigation etc. It's done 104000 but comes with a full audi service history. Last done at 98000. The garage want 6000. What should I be looking out for with it and is this high mileage for one. Have seen plenty with more!! If anyone has advice on this it would be much appreciated Thanks.

[Tabletski]

I have an 2006 S4, if it is clean, drives well, has receipts for work and a "checkable" service history, go for it. They are amazing cars.
I have had a couple of issues, satnav, easy sorted, forum showed me the way, heated rear window -auto electrician £90 for an hours work. Last mot showed up front suspension arm bushes and an expert examination of the suspension showed up two failed shocks too.
So check the suspension, it's expensive. But then so are all the bits for it, you will have to budget for potential expensive repairs and deep petrol pockets.
104000 miles is not bad for a 12 year old car.
Read the forum for issues. One of the most common mentioned is chain rattle from the timing chain tensioners if you hear it from cold more than a second or so it's a £2000 plus job. Warm rattle is maybe not as bad but a sign of things to come. I am paranoid about it.
Also there seems to be an issue with top end oil leaks and odd excessive oil consumption.
But that all said, I would not give my car up easily and would buy another.

[danb1977]

Thanks for the info! The one that I looked at hadn't been started for a couple of days and it fired up straight away with said rattle for half a second. Checked the engine as much as possible and couldn't see any oil leaks. Ex mechanic so I don't mind getting my hands dirty a bit. Don't mind the fuel costs to much as I only do about 5000 miles a year and my current motor only does 23 mpg ..really looking forward to owning one of these! Been looking since Xmas and this was the best one I'd found for the price. How much mpg out of interest? !

[Tabletski]

Hard driving in town using acceleration 15 plus, normal town £25 a hundred miles, A9 average speed cameras, 35 mpg, sat at 60mph for 100 miles.
It's a hard car to drive slowly in.

I am no expert but apparently the tensioners are prone to fail and said rattle is a sign, according to stuff I've read there is also a fault in the oil return valves, prone to stick open causing oil to flow back down and not provide instant oil to the tensioners.

[adamss24]

I have a b6 s4 and for the money they are hard to beat ! Mine returns 23-27 Mpg on a mixed run and it's running on 20" alloy wheels. As above, make sure there is no chain rattle from cold start-up, it's a very, very expensive job to do right and parts are very expensive to buy from dealer. Mine is de-cated, has Milltek piggy pipes (pre cats removed) and it's mapped with a JH Motorsport tune to about 370 Bhp ! As mentioned above it's hard to drive economical but with recent fuel prices it's only £65 to fill the tank with regular Shell petrol although mine seems to like V Power or Tesco 99 Octane better ! I would say it's one of the most accomplished cars you can buy for the money, with good brakes, good steering and balanced chassis with audi's legendary 4 wheel drive system ! It's one car to own in your life, get a manual if you can, auto's are dead slow !

[Tabletski]

Autos are not dead slow!

I only wish I had some form of launch control. Mine goes off the line like a scalded cat 0-60 in less than 6 seconds.