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Hi all,

I have been away from this forum since selling my S5 a couple of years ago - Reg was RS55 VAG hence the username!

Well, after driving my 2.0TDI A3 Quattro around for a couple of years, enough was enough and it was time to go back to the REAL cars - this time my first B7 RS4.

After lots of searching and driving up and down the country on weekends I finally managed to find one that fit my requirements. The prior 6 I had viewed were either lacking mechanicaly or in bodywork / and in some cases both! Despite a dealer in Poole describing it as "one of a kind" and "best you will see" - I approached the car, took 1 lap of it and walked away. It was horrendous to say the least!

Anyway, that then eventually led me to purchasing my RS4 from a Reading based company called Bonneville's of Berkshire which I cant recommend highly enough. It later turned out that the owner of this company purchased my S5 from me 2 years prior - small world eh!


Anyway, I am a big DIY'er so onto the photos but in essence since ownership for the past 6 weeks I have carried out:

• Carbon clean
  Oil change
  Spark Plugs
  Air Filter
  Forge Oil Cooler Kit
  Gliptone Leather Cleaner and Conditioner
  Started various other detailing activities - more to come in the Spring

RS55 VAG wrote:Hi all,

I have been away from this forum since selling my S5 a couple of years ago - Reg was RS55 VAG hence the username!

Well, after driving my 2.0TDI A3 Quattro around for a couple of years, enough was enough and it was time to go back to the REAL cars - this time my first B7 RS4.

After lots of searching and driving up and down the country on weekends I finally managed to find one that fit my requirements. The prior 6 I had viewed were either lacking mechanicaly or in bodywork / and in some cases both! Despite a dealer in Poole describing it as "one of a kind" and "best you will see" - I approached the car, took 1 lap of it and walked away. It was horrendous to say the least!

Anyway, that then eventually led me to purchasing my RS4 from a Reading based company called Bonneville's of Berkshire which I cant recommend highly enough. It later turned out that the owner of this company purchased my S5 from me 2 years prior - small world eh!


Anyway, I am a big DIY'er so onto the photos but in essence since ownership for the past 6 weeks I have carried out:

• Carbon clean
  Oil change
  Spark Plugs
  Air Filter
  Forge Oil Cooler Kit
  Gliptone Leather Cleaner and Conditioner
  Started various other detailing activities - more to come in the Spring

Photos from when I first went to view the car. It was a cold cold morning but that didn't detract from going over the car with a fine tooth comb.

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Came to an agreement with the seller to replace the front discs and pads and sort a very minor knocking noise from the front end when braking from around 4mph to stationary. This turned out to be a significantly expensive job - just under £1.5k as the top upper control arms were badly worn.

The problem was, those troublesome pinchbolts just wouldn't move and couldn't even be drilled out so it was a case of buying 2 entire new front carriers from Audi to replace. Ouch!

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Front arms complete. The car was ready to collect. That was the best drive home from Reading, despite the horrible rain!

This is a weekend toy only and lives in the garage so this was the first and last time it was driven in the rain. Luckily girl eh!

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A good clean up and then tucked away in the garage until the weather cheered up a bit.

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After a little bit of driving on some country roads it became apparent there was a very slight knock from the rear end at low speed. Sounded suspiciously like the rear top mounts as there was no adverse rebound issues with the Bilstein shocks.

Sure enough. Upon inspecting the rear top mounts they were shot so I replaced them with the OE components I had already ordered.

Problem solved. Now on to investigating the notorious oil cooler pipework for corrosion...

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Jacked up front of car, removed under tray and held my breath as I went under to inspect the oil cooler lines....

Bugger!!!

Looks like a new system is required then!

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So after a 3week wait the Forge kit arrived and wow, what a quality kit it is!

I did the usual research in advance of buying the car in expectation this job would be required... It seemed that Forge are the kits to go for in terms of high quality, cheaper than Audi priced and lifetime warrenty - something I understand Audi have not managed to address with their galvanic corrosion of materials used on their pipes and cooler.

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More Forge Oil cooler install photos...

Also since I had the front off I checked for corrosion of the 2 aux radiators... Typically they rot at the bottom due to debris / leaf build up etc. No issues on this one luckily.

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Air filter replacement with an OE item and closer inspection of the oil cooler pipes... Looks like it was a matter of time before they let go. Soo glad I inspected them and caught them before they caught me!

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Time for some morning driving to check Ed getting is settled in OK after replacing oil cooler and carrying out oil change etc.

The locals decided to poke their nose in and have a check on quality... Seems all was well.

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Some time off over Christmas so time to get stuck into a more complex and time consuming job... The CARBON CLEAN!

This was the first time I have carried out a carbon clean on any car however Audizine had some great threads and links to inlet manifold removal (also a sticky on this forum).

A couple of shots from the disassembly process here.

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Quite possibly the most fiddly job I have carried out.
All of the DIY threads state that a special tool for removing a couple of bolts from the back of the engine due to space restrictions.

I thought, I have small 1/4" bits I can get in there with no issues. I'm not going to by anything I won't need. Boy was I wrong!

A few days later the special super skinny tool arrived which was a relative breeze.

A note of advice... Buy one of these before you start. Don't get half way through like me than have to wait for it to arrive.

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Manifold off... Time to inspect the inlet ports.

Yep..... As expected.... Carbon everywhere.

Interestingly though, the car was driving fine, pulling like a train and revved high with the infamous kick at 6k. This was just a job I wanted to do for piece of mind so it will only be better from this point onwards.

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Cleaning time... I used a method of soaking in carbon cleaner, scraping out the large chunks, brillo pads, more carbon cleaner than wallnut media blasting with a compressor and a DIY vacuum cleaner hose attachment. The combination worked well.

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