Lets change it up: Audi URS4 vs A4 vs S4

belteshazzar wrote: if i understand right, you're just going to use this car up over a period of a couple three years or so? A4

Probably not. It really comes down to a lot of things. I love all cars and treat them well. If I find one that I like ergonomically, aesthetically, doesn't break tooooo often, and doesn't break the bank, I could probably keep it for a long time.

Only car I've owned longer than two years was my 1989 turbo Firefly, owned from 16 until 21. Mostly because all the others were junk or race cars (and then I went back to school, so the fleet had to go).

I'm at a point that I've recovered from the sticker shock of buying my STi rallycar. I want a big boy car more than anything, something that can be daily driven but more importantly has a certain amount of class/style to it.

HiTempguy wrote: I was mainly referring to any of the older Audi stuff that was fast. Are you about the B5? That'd be a wicked ride (direct competition with the Volvo V70R).

Oh yeah, they sold the B5 S4 Avant here. I placed a factory order for my sedan, it was delivered in August of 2000. A few weeks after it was delivered, they announced that they were bringing the Avant here, which was really irritating because I would have waited and bought it had I known. Three or four friends of mine bought B5 S4 Avants. I can't find any on Craigslist right now, but they show up around here (San Francisco Bay Area) about once or twice a month.

After owning the B5 sedan for about 7 years I sold it and bought an '04 B6 S4 Avant, same color, same blue recaro seats, but with the V8. Haven't taken this one on the track tho. :) (I still own it, so it may yet happen but I don't expect it to do any better on brakes at Laguna Seca than the B5 did).

They also brought the C5 S6 Avant with the 4.2L V8 here (Avant only), but it was tiptronic-only. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/ctd/3935209682.html

B6 and B7 S4 Avants can be had in the low-to-mid teens. This one, for example: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/cto/3882170755.html

The V8 doesn't have the power potential that the biturbo V6 does, and actually makes less torque at low revs (those K03s spin up fast), but it loves to rev and it sounds glorious doing it.

Not that it's central to anyone shopping S4s but I've heard the mileage on B6 S4s is in monster truck territory, like 13mpg city/ 20 highway. Is that what you've found? My neighbor had an uncorked B6 RS4 that gave me bad thoughts.

Unless it was an RS4 I'd have to get my S4 in Avant flavor with the manual trans.

bluesideup wrote: Not that it's central to anyone shopping S4s but I've heard the mileage on B6 S4s is in monster truck territory, like 13mpg city/ 20 highway. Is that what you've found? My neighbor had an uncorked B6 RS4 that gave me bad thoughts. Unless it was an RS4 I'd have to get my S4 in Avant flavor with the manual trans.

From what I've saw, that's basically all of these cars in general.

Having taken a B6 S4 on a 5000+km roadtrip to Vegas and back, I have experience in this matter. If I could afford it (which I can, but I'd rather pay $4k for this URS4 compared to $15k), I'd be in a B6 S4 Avant right now.

And yea, RS4 = tight in the pants, even when stock. The prices have dropped down to super reasonable prices now (mid $30's in Canada), but again, only way I'd get one is if I could get a RS4 avant.

Ah, I missed that you were in Canada -- I know the US got the Avants for the B5/B6/B7 S4s, but I don't know if Canada did.

And yes, the milage on the S4s is pretty terrible. In my B6, I average 14 -- it drops to 10-11 in stop-and-go traffic, and rises as high as 18-19 if cruising on the freeway at 65. This is with California crap-gas (we get just about the worst gas in the US), fairly heavy traffic, and a very heavy right foot, so that's about a worst case, and there's probably 2-3 mpg available if you fix those factors. The EPA rates it at 13/20.

In the B5 I got a bit better milage than the B6, maybe 2 mpg. They're heavy cars, they have thirsty engines, and the quattro drivetrain has a lot of friction in it.

The direct injected FSI engines improve the milage substantially. The B7 RS4 got the direct-injected version of the 4.2 V8, rated 80 hp higher (and with an 8500 RPM redline) and it's supposed to get a couple mpg better than my B6. The B8 with the supercharged V6 supposedly gets mid-20s.

So, I found someone on the local enthusiast forums with a URS4 to take me for a spin.

It was about as magical as I imagined it. Even with 200,000kms, solid car, rode awesome, handles like a (surprise!) A4. The doors, my god the DOORS are amazing. It's like the car was built as a quality piece of machinery, they shut how doors should close.

And that turbo 20valve, hilarious how it just pulls with no signs of letting up right to 7000rpm, all while sounding great.

Next weekend can't come soon enough

Soooooo, to bump this from the dead, the guy got back from his trip.

I had a phone call conversation with him, and we agreed that if the car was as described and it drove correctly, $4k it is! I'll be hopping on a Greyhound tomorrow night for 10 hour to BC and then drive it back home. Should be a good time

Nice! That should be a fun drive home!

sethmeister4 wrote: Nice! That should be a fun drive home!

The bus ride has already been entertaining, walk in the terminal, person throwing up. Excellent lol.

Can't wait for pics!

Pics of the car that is, not the guys throwing up, lol.

agreed. you owe us pics of this cross country URS4 road trip. sounds like a blast. . . besides the bus part. the driving blast, not the projectile vomit blast. haha

British Columbia to Alberta is not cross country, but I am looking forward to more info and pics too! I have a thing for old Audi's.

haha, didn't know where he was coming from, but a 10 hour bus ride seemed fairly long. . . then again, it is the bus. . I is dumb. lol

NGTD wrote: British Columbia to Alberta is not cross country, but I am looking forward to more info and pics too! I have a thing for old Audi's.

Some newfie's had to explain to me that Edmonton to the east coast of Quebec wasn't "driving across the whole country either". I told them they were just a subset of New Brunswickers

Well, the whole trip was pretty uneventful trip-wise. Greyhound buses have remarkably improved since the last time I rode one! They had wifi, electrical outlets, and comfortable seats (not comfortable enough to sleep in though ).

I arrived in Salmon Arm early at about 5:15am and waited until 7am for the seller to show up to grab me. Nice enough fellow. Car was basically as pictured in the ad. Bone stock, relatively clean.

A couple issues I found during the test drive:

1) The clutch worked fine, but grabbed awfully close to the floor (hydro clutch). You then had to pull it up with your foot sometimes to get it to come up the last inch or two It didn't slip though, so I wasn't too worried.

2) The odometer didn't work! I was kind of pissed about this, as that makes it hard to verify the mileage AND technically, for an out of province inspection, the odometer needs to work. This was the big sticking point for me.

3) While it is an Audi (which aren't prone to rusting), there is a lot of surface rust on the underside of the car because it was from Ontario. Nothing structural, but working on the car will probably suck the first time anything gets pulled apart. I see a lot of sandblasting and painting in my future

4) It may require a right rear wheel bearing. It could also be the E36 M3ty tires on it humming.

5) It smells... funny inside. I can't even describe it. Maybe like modeling clay and a bit of mustiness? BC is a fairly humid area and the car didn't get aired out often, so it's going for a professional cleaning sometime this week (the interior itself is super clean for being 20 years old though).

6) Cruise control doesn't work and I was told it does. I need to get that fixed asap.

7) AC needs to be recharged (and hopefully that is all).

The body was in really, really nice shape though, and the respray is excellent. There are a couple areas where you can see the taping/masking off of the car wasn't the best (some paint on some mouldings/trim pieces), but unless you knew to look you wouldn't notice. Car runs great, pulls to 7000rpm redline with ease. Shifts awesome.

This was at the Chevron in town. The owner told me it was "low on fuel" and he had put $20 in it. I was cool with that. Went to fill it up, and I only got 25 litres in it... it's an 80 litre tank! I checked the gas gauge and it hadn't really moved much. I thought the pump was just acting funny, so I tried to keep filling it, at which point I heard the sound of liquids being spilled and fumes reaching my nose. My heart dropped as I thought he may have screwed me with a car with a leaky gas tank

Alas, ALL WAS NOT LOST! Apparently the "you've put too much gas in your car dumbass" drain lets gas leak onto the gas tank, so the fountain of fuel I saw was not the gas tank leaking, but the overfill vent venting. This took a couple (angry) minutes to sort out. And that's how I found out the fuel gauge isn't working.

The car gets pretty damn good gas mileage. I did 25usmpg @ 65mph, and there was a lot of "grabbing 3rd to the 7000rpm redline to pass" moments. That's some friekin range with an 80L tank!

Overall, I'm happy. It's comfy, IMO, it looks GOOD in a stylish way, it'll sound great, and it should be a fun daily driver. Some of the oddities need to get worked out, but that will come with time. The clutch magically fixed itself as of this morning, it operates like normal. Maybe it had air in it? And my double clutching like a fool cleared things up? Who knows. The odometer also started working as soon as I got on the highway, so that helped immensely!

One last thing is that the leather has to go. It's too old and hard. At the very least, I'd like to get the middle of the buckets redone in something like suede cause sweat plus leather sucks (unless you are into that kind of thing ).

Adam - re smell. Get a few boxes of baking soda and spread liberally on the carpet. Rub it in slightly and let it sit 24 hrs. Vacuum it up.

My brother's detailer says this will even take puke smell out of a car.

2K4Kcsq wrote: haha, didn't know where he was coming from, but a 10 hour bus ride seemed fairly long. . . then again, it is the bus. . I is dumb. lol

His 10 hour bus trip took him from one province to another, the two most westernly provinces. Canada has 8 other provinces east of Alberta.

If I recall correctly the Greyhound from Vancouver to Toronto takes 3 days and that is only about 2/3's of the way across Canada.

NGTD wrote: Adam - re smell. Get a few boxes of baking soda and spread liberally on the carpet. Rub it in slightly and let it sit 24 hrs. Vacuum it up. My brother's detailer says this will even take puke smell out of a car.

This.

I once bought cloth seats from a car that had been smoked in for 20 years. 2 boxes of baking soda and a day later, and they didn't even taste like smoke. Never smelled anything bad from them again, in fact.

NGTD wrote: Adam - re smell. Get a few boxes of baking soda and spread liberally on the carpet. Rub it in slightly and let it sit 24 hrs. Vacuum it up. My brother's detailer says this will even take puke smell out of a car.

I don't think it's the carpet, I think it's the leather if that makes sense? How do you get smell out of leather is a scary question to ask of the googles

HiTempguy wrote:

NGTD wrote: Adam - re smell. Get a few boxes of baking soda and spread liberally on the carpet. Rub it in slightly and let it sit 24 hrs. Vacuum it up. My brother's detailer says this will even take puke smell out of a car.

I don't think it's the carpet, I think it's the leather if that makes sense? How do you get smell out of leather is a scary question to ask of the googles

Do the same thing - rub the baking soda in and leave it. Use lots - like a 1/4" all over the leather. Recline the seats so it will stay on the seatbacks.

NGTD wrote: Do the same thing - rub the baking soda in and leave it. Use lots - like a 1/4" all over the leather. Recline the seats so it will stay on the seatbacks.

Cool, I'll have to give that a try this weekend, thanks for the suggestion!

While this forum doesn't really do the "looks" thing, the fact is, this car will never be a racecar. It's only purpose is to look good and eat up the highway miles while blowing the doors off unsuspecting ricers and muscle cars.

Been getting a lot of compliments on it, I think this picture highlights why:

In other news, ordered H&R's today. The car is just too wallowy, plus it's almost comical how much wheel gap there is just from a aesthetics point of view. I am delving a bit into my "tuner y0" side, as instead of going with the H&R sports that drop the car 1.3", I went with the H&R sports for a 1991 Audi 200 turbo 20 valve quattro. This will probably drop the car a total of 2 inches all around. It should still handle and ride well (hoping the slightly softer spring rate for the 200 turbo gives a better ride), and I absolutely will be installing shortened bilsteins come spring.

Bit of an offtopic, but tirerack rocks. Always. Ordered the springs, they called to point out they couldn't ship to PO boxes, changed the address, no additional shipping charges.

And for the GRM side of things, the 200TQ springs were $75 cheaper than the ones meant for my own Audi. How am I to argue with saving money?!

Congrats!

Now, you need to know Marc of http://www.efiexpress.com/catalog/ . Good things happen to Audi 5 cylinders when he is involved. If you're ever in Montreal I can help too. This if for when the car is longer fast enough for you.....

About the leather, I would strongly suggest keeping it. Early 90's Audi leather is sterner stuff than the modern version and those urS4 seats are the best passenger car seats I ever sat in. Leatherique products, though they take a bit of time to apply, work great, and they make the car smell great while they're at it