S4 Running costs

5k would get you a really good one with the current prices, personally Id avoid a cheap/high miler as it will just be a money pit.
If you are happy to regularly service/maintain it, can afford the insurance and fuel costs then go for it, you will love it!

Turbos are one of the most important thing to worry about

Hi Toby, I have recently taken the plunge and bought an S4, albeit the B7 chasis which houses the 4.2 V8, thirsty to say the least! However I did know this prior to purchasing so was not overly shocked! lol Not sure how much less thirsty the 2.7 bi turbo is, but cant see it being that far behind my average figs, approx 18mpg being driven reasonably sensible by the missus. The service costs etc havent come into the equation just yet as I havent had it long enough! Loving the nmotor though. good luck with your search, bide your time, its a buyers market!

Abb

Hi Emery,

I have had mine for the past 2 months and I must say, I'm glad I had a bit of money back. I average about 22 MPG and I hear that is good, Insurance isn't the best either but that is to be expected. I bought mine for about 5k, I had a good look around and it looked pretty solid full Audi service history etc.

Unfortunately I have had a bit of bad luck, the CV joint went on my my passenger side and my alternator went. I should have checked the alternator when I bought the car but oh well. If I had more time and space I would have changed the bits myself but as I work lot I couldn't be without a car and took it to my local Audi specialist and for both of those and a new battery it cost me best part of £800.

If you don't mind getting your hands dirty I don't think it would cost that much to run. You just need to look for things and catch things early like making sure boost is good, watching oil pressure etc. check for any boost leaks, change your oil whenever you can.

Apart from the above though, I must say although it has cost me a bit in the past month I love this car.

Vagcom is a must, I scan mine every 2-4 weeks just to check everything is ok.
If you find a fault code has been stored it can give you a heads up for boost leaks and things starting to fail etc

I had one of these for 4 years, although it was a younger model when I bought it. I had about 40k miles with minimal service costs an tyres and that was it. Then I blew a turbo just as I planned to sell it and really should have trusted the job to a specialist at about £2500 but made some mistakes in my judgement. Anyway, the point is that even with all the costs of fixing the turbos etc, I only spent about £4000 total in 4 years of ownership and depreciation was another £6k. At circa £5k, you'll have barely any depreciation - if anything they will go probably start to go up in value as the numbers reduce. I sold mine for just under £5k.

Also, I used to get around 24Mpg after my remap, and that was with LOTS of enjoyment of the remap.. On a long run, and if I felt like it, I could nudge 30Mpg, so they really arent that bad.

There are some expensive failures waiting in the wings in these cars, but if you can get your hands dirty, most of it can be tackled yourself, and spares are plentiful, sadly at sub £5k, many cars are being broken as they make more in parts than whole. Over on AudiSRS there's been two cars recently sub £2500 and they were by no means dogs, just high mileage. One was broken IIRC at 300k miles (yes!!). The engines are VERY strong if serviced reasonably, its the other bits that mount up.

However, IMHO you cant get as much of a strong, quiet, sleeper car with over 270Bhp for the money that gives so many smiles!

I would watch out for turbos (buy a forum car over an autotrader one anyday), recent service at a decent garage or specialist, and, especially, a PROPER cambelt change - it should have all belts, all tensioners, thermostat and other ancilliaries done (bill around £500-£750)

There's some great cars out there, with all the care lavished, and I really wouldnt be put off by over 100k miles, at least the car will have been used properly; mine was circa 80k when it went, and whilst I REALLY looked after it, you could tell it had done lots of journeys, rather than miles. I've seen examples with twice my mileage in better overall trim condition. Not many as shiny though

Hope this helps!

I would not say high milers are automatically money pits. I am on 188+ miles and spent most of the money on the car at around 80K. Still on original turbos too, which is annoying because had they blown, I'd be one KO4s.

Can't remember the last time I had a "largs" bill, it was that long ago.