Honest motoring - 03 Audi A4 Avant

[Roverload]

Right. My MX5 project is nearing the end of the first stage: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Inconveniently my "trusty" 09 Honda Civic decided to rot out, I am most displeased with this, it was a hateful car to begin with but at the tender age of 12 I had not expected this. Anyway good riddance. I had to find a car quick, I looked at all sorts of weird and wonderful rolling projects but in the end I decided the last thing I needed was something else to suck money away from the MX5. Well under budget this caught my eye...




At 17 years old they still look good. I had one years ago, it performed perfectly but being the tdi 110 it was a little underpowered and never really floated my boat. But this one has gotten under my skin a bit and it's only been a week,, hence the post.

Here's the deal

£1495
Audi A4 Avant.
PD130.
150k
Proper S line.
Half leather and Alcantara seats
BOSE audio.
Chrome bits.
New but awful winter tyres.
Scratched all over but still a good shine.

I'm interested to see if these more modern cars can give the same satisfaction of ownership as something like the MX5 will. It has a few ailments I've noticed so far.

Both front wheel bearings need replacement.
Tyres were downright dangerous.
Roof liner sagging.
Air con compressor bearing rattle.
Paintwork issues.
Poor throttle response / sluggish.
In need of good service and a wayoyl!
Undertray missing.

First thing was the tyres. As I hadn't spent all my original budget on the car I found a rather rare A4 Avant 2.5 ABT edition breaking a few miles down the road from me. On it were a slightly shabby set of genuine BBS RS2 split rims with recent tyres, one of the center caps was missing and all the paint on the lips is flaking off but in good condition these things are worth an eye watering amount of money. £150 with recent tyres was a bit of a bargain in my eyes so the deal was done. I also bought a tow bar, scuttle cover, non cracked indicators, louder alarm unit and the ABT front grille which may or may not end up on the car.

Fitting the wheels resulted in utter transformation of the ride. The car felt quite nervous on the other tyres.

Today I started to address the poor throttle response. I ran Wynn's gold diesel system treatment in half a tank of premium fuel and a can of EGR cleaner followed by a 30 minute steady drive and I have to say it's worked straight away, the power band that the turbo gives is much more defined and you can feel the boost and use it much more effectively through the throttle. So well worth it. I'm going to run it in the tank until I need to fill up again then service it and use some Wurth engine flush which I've seen good results with on other cars.

So this is how she stands after a good wash and a quick clean of the new wheels. I'm excited!






Quick breakdown of the costs so far.

Car £1495
Wheels and tyres £150
4 new centre caps with plates £80
Diesel treatment £16
EGR cleaner £9
Rear wiper blade £14
Oil, all filters, flush and wheel bearings £250

Ramp time next thursday...

[DailyHack]

Nice cars, always been on my radar if I needed a quick find car is a 1.9 Avant - good shed, and very classy, they have aged terribly well I think.

[6cylGolf]

lot of car for the money, i had a b6 1.8t s line. quite rare really as a run out model before s line was really a thing.

[Roverload]

6cylGolf said:

lot of car for the money, i had a b6 1.8t s line. quite rare really as a run out model before s line was really a thing.

Yeah I always thought the only s line badges you saw on these were bought on Ebay. It did come with some questionable nurburgring badges on the rear doors too.

Worth preserving I think.

[paradigital]

I do like a nice well kept B6.

It’s not a “proper s-line” though, as S-Line trim was introduced with the B7.

[manmaths]

I like this a lot. Lots of car for the money!

Nice colour too and the wheels do suit the car.

Throw up some interior pics

[6cylGolf]

paradigital said:

I do like a nice well kept B6.

It’s not a “proper s-line” though, as S-Line trim was introduced with the B7.

Did you read my post? S line was a run out model on the b6 before it came a trim option on the b7

Edited by 6cylGolf on Friday 9th October 11:15

[paradigital]

6cylGolf said:

Did you read my post? S line was a run out model on the b6 before it came a trim option on the b7

I did, but that was only for the 1.8T. None of the diesels were S-Line until B7.

[6cylGolf]

paradigital said:

6cylGolf said:

Did you read my post? S line was a run out model on the b6 before it came a trim option on the b7

I did, but that was only for the 1.8T. None of the diesels were S-Line until B7.

So you knew that s line was first introduced on the b6 so what you actually meant when saying ‘as S-Line trim was introduced with the B7‘ was specific to the diesel , got ya

[ChrisCh86]

£150 for those wheels with tyres? Wow, that's an absolute bargain

I'm not normally a huge fan of aftermarket wheels but those look fantastic.


The 1.9TDI is pretty much indestructible so you've got a bargain there. If you look after the car, it should go for another 200,000 miles

[geeks]

I had a B7 2.0TDi Avant and a superb thing it was too. Enjoy!

[pidsy]

I’ve got a B6 1.8t Avant.
Picked it up for a couple of grand about 5 years ago. I’ve mistreated it over the years and it hasn’t faltered.

It does look a bit sad now though - wings are rusting and the alloys are knackered.

Gonna throw some money at it over winter to make it more presentable then use it as a daily so I put less miles on the others.

Bloody great car.

Looking for a new set of wheels - you had an absolute steal with those OP.

[Demelitia]

Great buy. Solid lump of an engine too.
I’ve got the same one in a Passat.
The lazy throttle response and general sluggishness could be the turbo vanes flagging up with all the crap the egr helps to create along with oil vapours.
A dose of Intravenous mr.muscle oven cleaner in to the hot side of the turbo can really help clear that all up.

[Roverload]

It's polishing up nice for a 17 year old car. I've got a cold and I'm fed up of lounging around the house doing nothing, I used to run a detailing business, haven't picked up the polisher in 2 years.
[url]

|https://thumbsnap.com/vEUbpZTv[/url]

I've found a couple of nasties that will need addressing but I'll come to that later on...

[Roverload]

I've been at it. Removed the badges on the bootlid, binned the dodgy gel nurburgring stickers and cracked on with the machine polishing.

Few issues I've found include the dodgiest front wing paint job I've seen on a car I've bought. Its rusting under the paint on the wing in multiple places and appears to have been keyed to 80 grit and no further.





And while I had the air box off to clean the EGR system out I noticed a relatively substantial oil leak on the drivers side of the engine...



Apologies for the terrible photo. Will require investigation on a ramp I think. Good job I've got ramp time booked soon.

New armrest arrived, cost me £9 on ebay doesnt fit properly. So its wedged for now...I've done 200 miles in it now. It feels good (wheel bearings aside) I'm not too worried.

[Demelitia]

Roverload said:

And while I had the air box off to clean the EGR system out I noticed a relatively substantial oil leak on the drivers side of the engine...



Apologies for the terrible photo. Will require investigation on a ramp I think. Good job I've got ramp time booked soon.

New armrest arrived, cost me £9 on ebay doesnt fit properly. So its wedged for now...I've done 200 miles in it now. It feels good (wheel bearings aside) I'm not too worried.

When you cleaned the egr did you get to the valve itself? The two holes either side of it will spray oil out of the diaphragm in it fails.
Oil there might also be the rocker cover gasket weeping. Any idea if it’s had an injector loom repair or replace? That’s a common reason for the cover to have to come off.

[Roverload]

Demelitia said:

Roverload said:

And while I had the air box off to clean the EGR system out I noticed a relatively substantial oil leak on the drivers side of the engine...



Apologies for the terrible photo. Will require investigation on a ramp I think. Good job I've got ramp time booked soon.

New armrest arrived, cost me £9 on ebay doesnt fit properly. So its wedged for now...I've done 200 miles in it now. It feels good (wheel bearings aside) I'm not too worried.

When you cleaned the egr did you get to the valve itself? The two holes either side of it will spray oil out of the diaphragm in it fails.
Oil there might also be the rocker cover gasket weeping. Any idea if it’s had an injector loom repair or replace? That’s a common reason for the cover to have to come off.

Thanks for that. I thought the injector loom issues was on the 2.0tdi? It was just the airbox off and a spray can from halfords. It's not been totally dismantled yet but it is on the list of things to do. Oil level is still bang on, I'll have it in bits soon enough to get a better look.

[Demelitia]

Roverload said:

Thanks for that. I thought the injector loom issues was on the 2.0tdi? It was just the airbox off and a spray can from halfords. It's not been totally dismantled yet but it is on the list of things to do. Oil level is still bang on, I'll have it in bits soon enough to get a better look.

No, 1.9’s have it fairly often too.
If you do the rocker cover gasket yourself, clean everything down well and use a thin smear of sealant on the corners and the half moon cut out bit.
If you can manage it, put it all back together with the sealant on, tighten the bolts gently most of the way , leave it overnight and then do the last bit of torquing up.
The bolts butt up against a shoulder and only take about 8nm at full tightness.

[Roverload]

Quick update. The wheel bearing got done finally but the stupid alloy suspension components deffinitely cost me alot of time and unforeseen cost. Nothing too horrific, we managed to save the arm but we did need to do alot of drilling out old bolts and had to leave stuff soaking overnight in wd40 while it lay marooned on the ramp at the local garage. All this added to an extra expense of £44 all in which i can live with.

There is an oil leak on the offside side of the engine, from what I'm reading this is from the EGR system, I can either delete the EGR or just replace a cheap seal, but either way this needs attention sharpish.

Another thing that needs sorting soon is the aircon pump rattle, I'm not sure if it's the clutch or the bearing but I can get both as a kit for around £60-70 so not the end of the world.

What could really upset things is the 2 patches of rust I found underneath at the rear end of both sills. I want at least one car that I own which hasn't been welded so i need to decide If I'm going to fix and seller if it can simply be cleaned up and treated.

Other than that the car is running nicely and getting me to work for very little money. I do get the feeling this 17 year old german sausage wants to live. It does appear to have a soul which is weird because when I had the exact same car but in red years ago I felt it was dead on the inside and was the main reason i sold it. It killed my soul. Not so with this old gal...







Updated Cost so far.

Car £1495
Wheels and tyres £150
4 new centre caps with plates £80
Diesel treatment £16
EGR cleaner £9
Rear wiper blade £14
Wheel bearing £56
New bolts £44
3D printed center cap spanner £16
Stickers for worn switch panel £4.99
New armrest lid (cant get to fit properly £10

Edited by Roverload on Sunday 8th November 16:27

[roadie]

Nice clean, simple interior.