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      05-16-2018, 11:40 AM   #23
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Setting he dieselgate VW/Audi emissions stuff aside... the turbo diesels in the A6 and A7 are well regarded engines both for performance and reliability.
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      11-22-2019, 01:50 PM   #24
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I bought a cpo 2013 a7 about 3 years ago and the car has been very reliable. The only issue I had was age related and common with a7s.. the lower suspension arms had to be replaced at 7 years, 65k miles. (2nd vehicle and kept outside in hot Florida weather a lot of the time.) parts were about 1k and 2.5hr of labor at my trusted local mechanic. I’ve read motor mounts also wear (age related). Also fuel door actuator fails. Can be replaced or WD40ed

BMW has a bunch of plastic under the hood. Very crappy cars to work on. and $$$ with those misfires
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      11-22-2019, 02:01 PM   #25
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      11-22-2019, 07:11 PM   #26
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What's a "business fleet"? Are you buying 20 cars just to drive to work and back?
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      11-22-2019, 08:40 PM   #27
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DON'T DO IT. Speaking from experience here - bought 2010 s4 recently and instantly got buyers remorse. Now, my case might not be typical because the car has 147kmiles, but still. Overall impression - they really don't want you to work on your car. Triple squares, stretch aluminum fasteners even when steel would probably do. Tighter space under the hood.
Starter is very difficult to replace, even more so than on BMW's, it right there with engine mounts and cats.
Speaking of cats, S4 bros who tune their cars often have to replace them after several thousand of miles of tune. Also pita and expensive to replace. So no tuning 3.0 tfsi unless you can fit some gutted or aftermarket cats.
3.0 tfsi also can consume some oil, although not as thirsty as 2.0t.
I guess a6, a7 got lucky because they didn't get an stronic dual clutch transmission, which has a very checkered record, including its longitudinal variant. Replacing mine, btw. Parts, new and used, are more expensive than BMW parts.
In summary, VW/Audi had a lot of good and innovative things going, but the good things were not made by them (say, ZF 8 speed), and the innovative things were not good ( stronic and some dsgs, tfsi engines).
I would not bundle up VW and Audi with BMW when taking about German car reliability. They are not the same. Imo, BMW has more honest engineering and it was less focused on planned obsolence.
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      12-17-2019, 12:41 AM   #28
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Reporting back. Got S7 and it's been a year with few problems, nothing major. Previous owner transferred me the platinum audi care so not a single penny spent for few repairs. Car is a rocket and has distinctive feeling compare to other BMWs i've had. I became a Audi fan but I still love my X5
My verdict so far is that smaller cars are better with BMW and bigger size is better with Audi. But damn infotainment is a shithole in Audi.
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      12-17-2019, 01:22 AM   #29
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mileage on the car? given that you had a year of platinum care left from the previous owner, it's well below 100kmiles. what issues did you have to fix with that care?
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      12-17-2019, 10:29 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
mileage on the car? given that you had a year of platinum care left from the previous owner, it's well below 100kmiles. what issues did you have to fix with that care?
I bought the car with 61k on and my platinum care covers until 2021, 100k miles. Car is current at 68k, and I only run about 6k miles a year. I replaced a supercharger breathing valve and some other minor stuff. Aside from groaning quattro system which I was told and read is normal for s7, it has been good. If I didnt have the warranty, it would been very expensive to repair those.
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      12-17-2019, 11:37 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
DON'T DO IT. Speaking from experience here - bought 2010 s4 recently and instantly got buyers remorse. Now, my case might not be typical because the car has 147kmiles, but still. Overall impression - they really don't want you to work on your car. Triple squares, stretch aluminum fasteners even when steel would probably do. Tighter space under the hood.
Starter is very difficult to replace, even more so than on BMW's, it right there with engine mounts and cats.
Speaking of cats, S4 bros who tune their cars often have to replace them after several thousand of miles of tune. Also pita and expensive to replace. So no tuning 3.0 tfsi unless you can fit some gutted or aftermarket cats.
3.0 tfsi also can consume some oil, although not as thirsty as 2.0t.
I guess a6, a7 got lucky because they didn't get an stronic dual clutch transmission, which has a very checkered record, including its longitudinal variant. Replacing mine, btw. Parts, new and used, are more expensive than BMW parts.
In summary, VW/Audi had a lot of good and innovative things going, but the good things were not made by them (say, ZF 8 speed), and the innovative things were not good ( stronic and some dsgs, tfsi engines).
I would not bundle up VW and Audi with BMW when taking about German car reliability. They are not the same. Imo, BMW has more honest engineering and it was less focused on planned obsolence.
Ha, good one. Go buy a 2010 N54 335i with 147k miles. You'll be in the shop every week.
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      12-17-2019, 11:53 PM   #32
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Well, 68kmiles is relatively new. Many enthusiasts will buy a car with higher miles usually without warranty and/or needing work and expecting to take advantage of depreciation and doing DIY repairs.
Unfortunately, Audi DIY is in general more difficult than BMW and they also tend to use more of their own innovations nobody else widely uses. I think I got a slightly different engine and trans combo - mine is 3.0t but afaik, s7 also had a dsg (dl501). When I'm talking about their innovations, I'm primarily referring to their own home grown dual clutch transmissions. Dl501 is such great design, aside relatively fast clutch wear and early teething electronics problems, it has a drive selector sensor buried inside the transmission. It wouldn't matter if it lasted forever, but unfortunately it doesn't and quits with little warning and it's a very tough job to replace requiring splitting transmission cases. Transmission is about 300 lbs and tough to handle. I guess in my case it's my bad not researching these cars enough and drinking the koolaid from Audi forums saying b8 s4 is a reliable alternative to e90 335i. I'd take turbo replacement any day over trying to replace that sensor in dsg trans not to mention new turbos can bring better than stock performance. Don't even want to talk how much it costs to have somebody replace that sensor. All in all, high mile 335i is a better choice than comparable high mile b8 s4. Cheaper new and used parts, lots of info. Can't tune the s4 either without fear of melting the cats which are also tough and/or expensive to remove.
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      12-18-2019, 01:13 AM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hellrotm View Post
Ha, good one. Go buy a 2010 N54 335i with 147k miles. You'll be in the shop every week.
hmm, a lot of issues can be diyed on n54 and do you really need to replace the turbos, water pump/tstat every week? turbos should last you a while. injectors might be costly, but not a huge labor to replace either. occasional blown charge pipe is nothing compared to blown trans. I do see a lot of 180+ kmile 335is, seems to got to those miles okay. Lastly, 150kmile 335i is selling for peanuts, while they want 10-11K+ for the s4.
P.S. I freely admit that getting into a car with this mileage was an extremely bright idea, I don't know what I was thinking.
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      12-18-2019, 06:39 AM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
Unfortunately, Audi DIY is in general more difficult than BMW ...
I would echo this statement times 10. Of course my experience was on an older (now) Audi, a 2001 S4 (B5 S4 with the twin turbo V6). During 10 years of owning that car, I also owned throughout (and past) that time an E39 M5, E90 M3, E90 330i, E46 330i and a Volvo 850R wagon. Guess which car was the biggest PIA to work on? The S4, no contest, by a wide margin. It was so much fun to replace the turbo drain seals three times (using OE Audi parts) which is typical for a B5 S4. At least the turbos were still fine at 192k miles when I sold it (likely due to never putting on a tune and the resulting max turbo rpm limit exceeded).

Need to swap an alternator on an E39 M5? No big deal, takes a couple of hours, straightforward. Same on an E90 or E46. The S4? Just finding it is difficult, and getting access to it is a major ordeal requiring putting the entire front of the car in the "service position", etc. The job sucks and makes you hate the car. Similarly with doing many other basic things on that such as rear brake pads which required a special tool that turns the caliper piston as it compresses it (you must buy and use this to do the job, which also makes it very easy to destroy the dust boots). Many of those jobs make you dislike the car for inflicting you with convoluted procedures and/or weird requirements.

I would echo the parts cost issue too. It seems like you essentially pay Porsche level parts cost. I had trouble finding reliable sources for deeply discounted OE parts like exist for BMWs. I don't know, maybe I've just been working on my BMWs through way too many years.

All that said, the more modern V8 turbo BMWs are likely a DIY nightmare and one I'll never want to experience. I'll find out more on the S55 as time goes by and it runs out of warranty in 2022...not really looking forward to that, but then again many years ago I felt the same way about the S62 in my E39 M5, and that turned out to be a non-issue from a DIY standpoint.
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      12-19-2019, 02:00 PM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CSBM5 View Post
I would echo this statement times 10. Of course my experience was on an older (now) Audi, a 2001 S4 (B5 S4 with the twin turbo V6). During 10 years of owning that car, I also owned throughout (and past) that time an E39 M5, E90 M3, E90 330i, E46 330i and a Volvo 850R wagon. Guess which car was the biggest PIA to work on? The S4, no contest, by a wide margin. It was so much fun to replace the turbo drain seals three times (using OE Audi parts) which is typical for a B5 S4. At least the turbos were still fine at 192k miles when I sold it (likely due to never putting on a tune and the resulting max turbo rpm limit exceeded).

Need to swap an alternator on an E39 M5? No big deal, takes a couple of hours, straightforward. Same on an E90 or E46. The S4? Just finding it is difficult, and getting access to it is a major ordeal requiring putting the entire front of the car in the "service position", etc. The job sucks and makes you hate the car. Similarly with doing many other basic things on that such as rear brake pads which required a special tool that turns the caliper piston as it compresses it (you must buy and use this to do the job, which also makes it very easy to destroy the dust boots). Many of those jobs make you dislike the car for inflicting you with convoluted procedures and/or weird requirements.

I would echo the parts cost issue too. It seems like you essentially pay Porsche level parts cost. I had trouble finding reliable sources for deeply discounted OE parts like exist for BMWs. I don't know, maybe I've just been working on my BMWs through way too many years.

All that said, the more modern V8 turbo BMWs are likely a DIY nightmare and one I'll never want to experience. I'll find out more on the S55 as time goes by and it runs out of warranty in 2022...not really looking forward to that, but then again many years ago I felt the same way about the S62 in my E39 M5, and that turned out to be a non-issue from a DIY standpoint.
I still have my 850 Light Pressure Turbo, it is so well made; zero rust, copper nickel brake lines; nice power response and great seats and room. I think I will regret getting rid of it.
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      12-19-2019, 02:03 PM   #36
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I am thinking about buying a B8 S4, but the jury is out on the DSG. Some say the B8.5 DSG is more reliable; but there isn't much data on what causes the failures and if you would be okay with the B8. They drive pretty nice and they seem to be cheaper than a F30 335i/340i.
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      12-19-2019, 02:29 PM   #37
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My advice is to at least get a 6mt s4, if not, avoid it altogether. B8s maybe slightly cheaper than f30 335i, but these are now becoming high mile cars, and you can erase these savings in one fell swoop. B8.5 are lower miles, but seem more expensive than f30s. For me though, once I fix the stuff on my b8, I’m going to ditch it, not worth the trouble. It’s not just the dsg, cats can easily burn out too and PITA as well.
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      12-19-2019, 03:18 PM   #38
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I am thinking about buying a B8 S4, but the jury is out on the DSG. Some say the B8.5 DSG is more reliable; but there isn't much data on what causes the failures and if you would be okay with the B8. They drive pretty nice and they seem to be cheaper than a F30 335i/340i.
I had a friend that picked up a B8.5 S4 DSG with 69k miles, 5k miles later and the TCM kept acting up and was shutting the car down. It ended up being a $3k transmission-out repair.

It definitely is a blast to drive, but I haven't driven it hard enough to know its limitations.
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      12-19-2019, 03:57 PM   #39
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Well, that problem probably was the same as mine - gear selection sensor dieing inside the trans. That’s a transmission out and cases split repair. That sensor did like to die early, sometimes right before the warranty ends. AFAIK, both b8 and b8.5 had a tsb for that sensor, so b8.5 might not be a safe bet as some think. My car didn’t exhibit any characteristic dsg problems before that sensor quit, had no jerky shifts or gear engagement delay. Trans felt quite good until 10 miles after it stopped seeing if it’s in drive, park or reverse
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      12-19-2019, 04:53 PM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
My advice is to at least get a 6mt s4, if not, avoid it altogether. B8s maybe slightly cheaper than f30 335i, but these are now becoming high mile cars, and you can erase these savings in one fell swoop. B8.5 are lower miles, but seem more expensive than f30s. For me though, once I fix the stuff on my b8, I’m going to ditch it, not worth the trouble. It’s not just the dsg, cats can easily burn out too and PITA as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
My advice is to at least get a 6mt s4, if not, avoid it altogether. B8s maybe slightly cheaper than f30 335i, but these are now becoming high mile cars, and you can erase these savings in one fell swoop. B8.5 are lower miles, but seem more expensive than f30s. For me though, once I fix the stuff on my b8, I'm going to ditch it, not worth the trouble. It's not just the dsg, cats can easily burn out too and PITA as well.
So you would recommend a B8, or B8.5 S4? I do all my own work, but tranny repair is out of any shade tree mechanics realm
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      12-19-2019, 05:56 PM   #41
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Neither. Like I said, I drank a little bit of koolaid from Audi forums and thought it’s going to be easier than 335i. Boy was I wrong. Just get an f30 335i. If you are hellbent on buying an S4, get one with warranty or don’t buy at all
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      12-20-2019, 07:58 AM   #42
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastboatster View Post
Neither. Like I said, I drank a little bit of koolaid from Audi forums and thought it’s going to be easier than 335i. Boy was I wrong. Just get an f30 335i. If you are hellbent on buying an S4, get one with warranty or don’t buy at all
What was so bad about it, can you be specific?
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      12-20-2019, 10:42 AM   #43
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Lol, I was specific about it this entire thread - did I not mention trans problems, difficult diy and parts cost?
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