Looked at a B5 S4 yesterday - Should this concern me? . . .

Looked at a RS4 spec S4 yesterday... All the work/conversion was recently carried out by a highly reputable S4/RS4 garage, mapped by MRC last month and only covered 1000 miles since.

When I got there, the first thing I did was check the oil, and there was NOTHING on the dip stick, admittedly not on level ground though... The car started, ran, boosted absolutely fine with no noises or smoke or anything. . .

We then got the car on level ground and checked the oil again, and still no reading on stick... After a little sniff about we found a leak on the lower sump pan, which would explain where the oil went. But should the fact it's been run that low be a reason to walk away?

As said, no noises, no oil light on, no smoke... I like the car but just a little paranoid this might cause me some difficulties later on, and I certainly don't want to be taking the engine out!

My theory at the moment is - if it has/had caused any damage we'd know about it buy now because of noise or smoke or something, and if the oil was critically low or it was starved at all, a light would have come on by now... Right? The guy is pretty genuine and I loosely know him, we've been in touch for a while even before he decided to sell up, so I'm confident he's not hiding anything from me.

What are peoples thoughts? . . The lure of a fire breathing S4 might be jading mine some what!

spartacus 68 said:

Think you've answered the question yourself. If you've any doubt, then walk away. You could drain the oil and look for evidence of metal swarf.

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You could also argue I answered my own questions when I said "if it has/had caused any damage we'd know about it by now because of noise or smoke or something, and if the oil was critically low or it was starved at all, a light would have come on by now... Right?"

And to be honest, I'm deffo leaning towards buying it... I doubt I'll get the opportunity to buy an S4 of this spec at this price any time soon, if ever again!?

I was kindo hoping someone could give more of a technical answer a long the lines of "the oil pick up pipe is a lot lower than the bottom of the dip stick". . . Or something to that effect anyway!

Broken Byzan said:

biggest issue is, was it "just off the stick" or litres down? you'll never know

I can assume from the fact it went ok, you are probably fine. Turbo's and heads soon complain if there is not enough oil

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Yea, my thoughts exactly...

The fact it was that low on the viewing means it was as much a surprise to him as it was to me, and at the lowest it had been... And if there was starvation at any point, I would first expect a warning to flash up, closely followed by noisy cam chain tensioner and lifters. Either of which would have been checked out prior to viewing!

aragorn said:

Was it a 2000> car?

99 an earlier dont have oil level sensors

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Yea, it's a pre-face S reg... So 1998 I guess?

Out of interest, what are the other mechanical differences of the earlier models?.. Are they still wide band?

aragorn said:

No B5 S4 is wideband, they're all narrowband.

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Yea, was just reading up on this... Apparently not even the RS4 was wide band? Seems a bit backwards, where I'm from in 1.8t world, narrow band is technology of the neanderthal!

Cool, well I think that's firmed it up for me... Hope to be picking up the car later this week she's a bit of a monster, no doubt it won't be long until you're all introduced!

wickedonemk2 said:

Probably completely of the mark but check the dipstick is the correct one for that car , they do differ and could have been changed without realising ..

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I did actually consider this also... But I'd like to think the company that last serviced it would have picked up on that, never know though!? . . That and we did actually find a rather noticeable oil leak