CEL due to SAI came on every 6mo like clock work, 1st time the car was less than 1 mo old. They could never fix it and wouldn't even extend the warranty, despite 10 attempts to fix

The dealer and Audi itself were both totally non responsive, too bad for them as I had owned only Audi as my main transportation since '85, won't buy a Porsche from them either

'85 4000 CS great car, Audi went out of their way to keep customers in those days due to the 60min Unintended acceleration controversy

'93 S4 turbo 5, great car but too much like the 911s in character

'96 A8 another great car

'00 S4 tt great while I owned it but too may others were losing turbos to be comfortable w/ extended ownership

'04 S4 V8 biggest POS and worst customer care I have ever heard of

Scott get a 3 series BMW. You can test mine out if you want. No other 4 door sedan that I have driven compares to it in regards to "feel". Especially for a car guy. Used ones can be had for cheap. I've driven A4's and they're nice, but they're not as good as BMW.

And remember VW owns Audi and VW service sucks. We also have an 05 Touareg we bought new and the car itself is nice but the dealer treatment and service costs are horrendous.

My neighbor has an S4 convertible with the V8 engine; every time it goes by my driveway I get a chub just from the sound of that engine, and i drove a 928 with a fairly randy exhaust-

N!

I don't know the S series so I can't help you there, but our 02 A4 Quattro - std suspension tiptronic 3.0L - will be replaced with another newer one.

I am the anti-Tim. My 3 series BMW experience was not good. I think I am finally over the CEL red light tan after 2 years . . .

Ian

My 2000 S4 (2.7T) is going to hit 150K miles in a few weeks. It has required some expensive maintenance/repairs over the years (and a number of expensive tires) but what car of this sort doesn't? I will seriously consider another Audi when this one gives up the ghost, although I am open-minded to alternatives. While a V8 or V10 would be sweet, forced-induction smaller engines have a lot of merits and boost is addicting.

I don't know if they're available in North America but have you considered the A6 Avant 4.2. Bigger than an A4 obviously but not a leviathan like the A8, however the quattro under carriage, transmission engine etc... 345 bhp(Euro spec) is carried over from the A8 - Awesome Q Car

I'd skip the V8 S4, in favor of an '01-03 S8. Fantastic cars...

JR

And not much different in price today

Looks like I may be in the minority, but here goes..... a year and a half a ago I bought a CPO 2005.5 S4 for $25k.....50k on the clock pristine condition….auto, would have liked stick but the price was right.

First let me say that I am not one to get all gushy over cars, my s4 is a DD and has seen its share “real world” driving.

I love the car, I dropped the car yesterday for the 65k service and got a 2011 a4 2.0t loaner….so I speak from experience when I say that I would never trade my old s4 for a new a4.

The a4 is a really nice car don’t get me wrong, but the s4 is something totally different. I am really surprised by the performance of the s4 when I get on it now and then…..usually I just tool around, to and from work, get the kids, etc. But even in these mudane chores you have the ability to play around with the car in a way you just can’t with the a4.

I have had a few warranty issues that have been covered. It is a higher performance car so I expect the cost of ownership to be higher as well. I would recommend buying CPO as I did so if any serious issues present themselves they will be covered.

I have also driven the new s4 with the supercharged 6….it is nice, the suspension is far better than mine and the acceleration is comparable. It has all of the new bells and whistles, I just wished they would have kept the v8 engine.

In summary:
Is the 2.0 anemic? Slightly, a very nice car, but not an s4.

Is the S4 4.2 a gas hog? Yes, if driven “properly”

Is the 3.2 the best compromise? Maybe, don’t have any experience.

Problems and things to look out for? Multiple owners, sketchy service history, not sure if the clutch is considered a “wear item” if so that might be a big bill even if the car is CPO.

Any thing bad/good with a particular model year? I would only look at 2005.5 and up, and buy CPO from dealer.

That's a pretty good run. How has the body held up after 16 years of Chicago winters?

Please, tell me more. My father is seriousely considering a D2 S8 with 35K miles. He was hoping for some words of advice from myself, but I admit the Cisero/Hancock stories have left a lasting impression.

I've owned 11 or 12 Audis. My experiences have been positive for the most part, better than those I've had with BMW and Mercedes. Unlike Tim, I no longer work on my daily drivers myself, so I don't care about the serviceablility of them. The technicians that do work on them don't consider them difficult. Unlike Jim, I haven't had any that were unreliable. My BMW's consistently have had more issues and my Mercedes were vastly more costly to maintain and fix. Im sure that if you look at any of their Audi-bashing threads, you'll find comments from me that are positive.

I have an '03 S8. It's probably, overall, the best car I've ever owned, from a driving perspective. It has the best seats, a great motor, the transmission programming is perfect, it's just an amazing car to drive. For a daily driver, it smokes everything else I've ever driven. There's nothing about it that I don't like. It's one of those cars that you have to drive to understand. Reading about it doesn't do it justice, although if you want to do so, see what David E. Davis had to say about it while at Automobile magazine.

It's the last car I will ever sell, Porsches included.

JR

One other thing I like about the S8 is the body style. To my eye, it's the best of the Audi sedan bodies. Better integrated bumpers, better lines overall...

A pic, stolen from the random picture thread:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1293539780.jpg

"Ronin single-handedly cultivated cult status and respect for Audi’s bloated flagship S8. Suddenly the identity of the 4.2-litre V8 ultimate street sleeper had been exposed, and every supercar owner watched their rear view mirror for the microscopic red ‘S line’ emblems." Pistonheads

Sub-£10k super-saloons

Yes, it was a good run and looks like it will continue. Due to a multitude of circumstances, I have decided to fix the A4. While I drive this car, I will begin the lengthy search for the "right" DD. I have narrowed down the choices to:

Audi A3 family
Audi A4 family
BMW 3 series
Volvo S60

I completely agree that the A8/S8 series is a phenomonal looking car. Just the right curves with perfect proportion. I have always felt that it was a larger, stretched version of the A4 body style. Kind of puts them in better proportion on the A8/S8 series.

JR, I do not doubt your positive experience with your multiple Audis over the years. I do not recall if you mentioned whether they all had high mileage on them or not? You did however mention that you no longer do your repairs/maintenance. You also stated that the service techs do not consider them difficult to work on..... "Difficult" may not be the appropriate term to use here as any Audi technician that works on these cars daily is probably not going to consider their daily job difficult. At least two Pelicans that own euro car repair businesses have stated here that they find these cars "more" labor intensive than some other euro cars to work on when doing similar repair/maintenance procedures. This is not so bad as they get paid for their time. ;)

As I have stated before, I have loved "driving" every Audi I have ever gotten the chance to. My sister and BIL have an A4 and a Q7 and my aunt/uncle own two Audis. Fortunately they make VERY good money and have become accustomed to paying out thousands of dollars in upkeep at the dealerships to keep the cars that are now out of warranty going.

I on the other hand, have not paid anyone for car repairs (other than periodic tire changes and a couple AC charges many years ago) since I started driving in 1982. You may not agree with my negative opinion on Audi servicability, but my opinion is solely based on MY experience owning/working on my Audi and my daughter's VW compared to working on my Porsches and BMW's. Obviously we will never agree and people here are free to form their own opinions and make their own choices..... Maybe Audis/VWs have improved with newer models... maybe they have not.... I will likely never know as I can hold a grudge with the best of them. :D

Some of my cars had high mileage when I sold them, some did not. Many were bought new, the others were typically bought when a couple years old, with low miles. The same is true of the BMW and Mercedes cars that I compare them to. I don't differentiate between "in warranty" and "out of warranty" problems. I simply look at all of the problems that have cropped up.

I used to do a lot more work on my cars than I do now. I quit because I accumulated too many cars and too many bikes and I used to travel a lot for business. What little down time I had, I reserved for restoration work on some fun cars and bikes, not routine maintenance on the daily driver fleet.

Most of my stuff gets serviced at the dealer, as that's where the better technicians are, at least in my neck of the woods. The exception is Porsche - they don't have any technicians that know the older cars at all, although they do perform the warranty work on my wife's Boxster S. I have an independent shop here that does all of my older Porsche work, as well as the odd Italian exotic that I drag in from time to time. His shop is a Bosch-certified repair center and he also works on Audis and BMWs, and has done so for a couple decades. He's really, really good. I've also used him for the older Audi and BMW crap that I have owned. He refuses to work on Mercedes.... and I don't blame him.

I once asked him, and also one of his better technicians, what they thought of the fact that when doing something like a cam belt service on an Audi, the front of the car usually has to come off. The impetus for this was your thread a while back, when you were doing something similar to one of your cars and hated every step of it. They looked at me like I was on crack. Not only did they think that pulling the front off the car was a good idea, they noted that it was easy, quick (for them) and a hell of a lot better than other brands (guess which ones.) And, it's not because they do more Audis than BMWs; in fact, the reverse is true.

I know that you are a very capable guy when it comes to wrenching on things and using your hands for anything mechanical. I've done my share of it, too. I've even run dealership service departments, body shops and the like. I do a lot of restoration-type work on some of my toys. I've tinkered with things my whole life. Yet, compared to these guys, I'm a rookie. What I think of as a pain in the ass, they don't even notice. They just get it done, in a 4th of the time it would take me. Day in, day out, all day long.

And it's not that I like to argue, just for the sake of it. I just feel like sometimes Audi gets a bad rap. People often blame the manufacturer for problems that are really related to the dealer. And others bad-mouth all dealers as a matter of course, even though there are many out there doing an exceptional job. Face it, the world is full of good, bad and indifferent and sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to get at the truth. I'm in a unique position, as I have been a dealer and thus know a lot of other people in the same business. I know the people that own, manage and work at each of the dealerships in my area that sell the car brands that interest me. I talk to the techs, a lot. Some of them I have known for 20 to 25 years. When I tell you that Audi isn't worse than BMW, it's not only my experience I'm thinking of. It's also from listening to the guys that work on them daily and hearing first-hand what problems really exist. Trust me, there are plenty of horror stories associated with BMW, Mercedes, etc.

Cheers,
JR

I completely agree. The picture I posted in the random thread is exactly like the one he's considering (save for the RHD of course). A handsome, understated car. A superior design in my opinion to the generation that followed it. He drove it yesterday and sounds quite smitten with it; I have a feeling he'll quickly be forgetting about the Phaeton he was also considering.
Thanks for your thoughts..

How much do you need to carry on your commute? Used Boxsters are getting very cheap.

That is, if you are comfortable in one. They don't have enough legroom for me.

In early 2007, we thought we were going to downsize into a condo with 2 parking slots. The X5 was a for sure keeper so we sold our 2004 Audi S4 and 1980 911SC and replaced them with a 993. This was the biggest mistake we have made in 35 years of marriage. The SC was the best P-Car I have ever owned, and the S4 was probably the best overall car we had owned.

During a recent realignment of cars I went looking for another S4 but couldn't find one that met our requirements. We bought an '06 M3 Competition Package only because we got a good deal. Again in hind sight, we should have kept looking for an S4.