I'll get straight to the pics so you lads don't skip over the rest of the text to get to them:
Right. You probably noticed the Russian plate: I live in Moscow most of the time. This isn't the UK and it's certainly not Germany so the amount of B7s up for sale here can be counted on the fingers of one hand. You can't be TOO picky or you'll never buy one. The Ruble exchange rate being what it is, these cars went from well above EU prices to well below currently. I had been looking to get a Porker 997TT or 991S as a daily, but unfortunately the collapsing Ruble exchange rate led to all the decent ones being snapped up and the rubbish ones now being vastly overpriced. So I went straight to step 2 of my plan and got a B7 RS4 which I've always liked. I'll run the car here for a year, maybe 2, and then bring it to Belgium where it will be stored for occasional drives and trackdays on the Nürburgring. When that happens I'll put in some light Sparcos at the front so I'm not bothered with not having the buckets in it. I don't need the extra bolstering support while sitting in a traffic jam.
Basically I drove two, a blue with buckets but more miles and this one. The blue was slow and quiet. This one went a lot better (still nowhere near my 6 though) and audibly had a lot more of the nice intake sound. Suppose the flap wasn't opening on the blue one.
It has ~46k miles on it, imported 10/2007 first registered 03/2008 and the guy I bought it from had owned it for 2 years as a weekend car. During this time he gave it a new paint job, new headlights, fogs and a new grille. Just to make it look like new again. It wasn't crashed, and I got the old units with it, the lot of them is still sitting in the boot. Not sure if they're worth putting up on Ebay or not, but it's nice to have the originals anyway. It also has a new windscreen which is lovely as all the sand on the roads here in winter creates a heavily pitted sandblasting pattern on it after a few years. He was quite emotional about the car which is a good thing, but the car isn't totally perfect just yet.
Issues:
- Intermittent MIL. Comes and goes. During the test drive some days ago it also briefly displayed the ESP + EPC warning. I talked him down enough from his asking price that I should have enough left in my pocket to let my mechanic sort this, but if anyone has some specific things I should be looking at in terms of sensors or vacuum leaks, I'm all ears.
- Undertray at the front is hanging down at the front nearest to the bumper. Not so bad that I can't go over a speedbump, but noticeable and I risk scooping up a load of snow with it. I imagine this isn't too hard to fix.
- A COLD start at -10°C went well but it sounded like the starter was cranking the engine for 2-2.5 seconds which sounded like a long time. My '6 starts a lot quicker, though it also takes a bit longer than usual in these temps. Thoughts?
As far as modding goes, I'll want to get rid of the precats eventually as they are so bloody restrictive. Maybe a map, but I'd like one from MRC and they're a long way from here.
