Newbie RS4 purchase

[ollys]

Hi all,

been looking at this site for a while now and pretty much made up my mind to buy a B5 RS4. There is one on autotrader for £19.5k near me with 87k miles in Avus. It has the following mods and description:-

first registered 10/10/00 (X reg) has now covered 87,000 miles with FASH to 60,000 miles then specialist independant servicing since. Full cambelt/water pump/thermostat service by MRC @ 77,000 miles. Last serviced at 86,000 miles. Upgrades: MTM 420 chip, dyno verified at 426 bhp. (QST) H&R anti roll bars 18 months ago (QST) Koni adjustable dampers (QST) (stock springs) AWE Snub mount (MRC) RS4 B7 discs & RS6 plus calipers (MRC) New MAF & DV's 18 months ago (MRC) New hard wheels 1 year ago with Michelin PS2's Nokia CK7-W Bluetooth hands-free kit MoT/Tax - October 2008, HPI clear

Is this a good buy on paper? Any views greatly appreciated. I just want to buy the right car! Thanks

Olly

[ash318]

Sounds good,why not ring doug at mrc and see if he knows car,fash was this longlife,definately get it vag commed before buying.I looked at several so called good cars before i bought mine about a month ago,buy with your head not your heart.

[Norrs2]

Seems like a very good buy to me, but as Ash says, phone Doug at MRC for his opinion of the car.

Good luck!

[timba]

Sounds like S4ints old RS4 by the look of the servicing

[mbelle]

Doesn't really matter about anything else, so long as you stick with Avus...

[mbelle]

Sorry... (need to stop these "colour" jokes don't I)

Seriously, I've just looked at that on trader and it doesn't look bad at all - always worth getting someone like Doug's advice though, as has been mentioned above...

MB

[derdle]

Welcome the forum...hope you become a regular visitor!

The advert seems to be saying all the right things, but I'd echo the above...have a word with Doug. You don't mention where you are based..one of the friendly bunch on here amy be local to you or where the car is and could meet up and check the car out with you.

Good luck with it (even if it is Avus, another which colour is fastest joke....).

Paul

[ollys]

thanks to everyone who replied - am seeing the car tomorrow, so will let you know how I get on. If it seems good to me then I will certainly be doing my homework with the various garages.

BTW - does mileage make much difference to these cars, or is it simply a question of how well they have been looked after?

thanks again

[Virdee Autos]

IMO mileage makes a difference to the value, but only really low mileage will make a big imapct

With regards to the car, I don't think so. Mines 70k+ and still strong as new IMO. They are very strong cars

You've got to realise that most of these cars are now 7-8years old, so 70-80k is expected.

[nickelvery]

Welcome and good luck buying the new car, you won't regret it.

You should also bring it to the next event on Sunday 2nd March (I promise I will stop posting about the event very soon!!)

Nick

[S4INT]

Yes, this is my old B5. PM me if you want more info, or as the others have said, Doug at MRC and Kim at QST both know the car so you could ask them too.

[ollys]

PM sent.

Saw this car yesterday - seemed quite nice. Didn't get to drive it as couldn't sort the insurance in time.

Only bad points as far as I could see were some stone chips on front bumper and bonnet and some in the windscreen. Is this costly to put right?

The search has begun!! I am quite excited about it!

Cheers to everyone again

Olly

[ollys]

Well - to give an update I drove this car today. Seems fine on boost - fairly rapid - and I liked the handling: not so much as hint of understeer. As I have not driven a standard car (without Konis and H&R stiffer Anti Roll bars) I will be interested to see, when I do, the difference.

A couple of quick ones; I noticed braking heavily from a highish speed some vibration in the brake pedal. This car has the B7 brakes- anyone got any ideas what this might be.

Also noticed a couple of rattles, one from the rear, sounds like parcel shelf and another from highish up on he drivers door. Are these easy fixes?

Also wipers were extremely slow (so slow in fact I would not like to be in this car in anything more than a drizzle). I have seen this problem on here and noted some have done a repair job themselves - Is it pricey if somebody professional does it?

Finally, car veered slightly to the left on flat road at speed when hands taken off the wheel - tracking perhaps??

Many thanks for your help. I like this car, it has the spec I am looking for, but the above are concerns. If I could change anything it would be the colour - I love the imola! Yellow is most prob the fastest colour IMHO.

Olly

[mikeyquattro]

Brakes, Possible warped disc.

Wipers. Common fault. O/s wiper stub arm siezes. Took me about an hour to sort. See the thread in this forum. Not too hard if your half handy with spanners

Mike

[ollys]

UPDATE:

Just been to see Nick Johnson, and test drove three cars. First was the x-plate imola yellow one, which is totally standard. I love this colour, and if my heart was the only consideration, I would have bought it by now on colour alone. The car felt tight and fresh (as one might expect with 45k miles). The brakes felt ok, the car understeered a lot (which I gather is the standard set up), but a low milage pretty good nick standard example - am seriously tempted.

The second car a I drove was the y-plate Blue one: 82k miles- QST/MTM 460; milltek; MTM 19s / Konis / Movit brakes / short shift/ had £17k spent on it in last two years. This car felt like a modified car. Serious power and stopping power, although the brakes have an issue, I liked it too, but felt that it had just been through the mill too much if you know what I mean.

Third car was the other y-plate blue one with 41,000 miles, apparently standard, except in one respect: for reasons not as yet known it was way, way faster than the QST one above!!!!!!! Apparently the owner who sold it thought it was standard!!!!!!! Does anyone know what must have been done to make it feel appreciably faster than a MTM 460. I have to say that there was a significant shove at 3,500 revs (which felt like turbo lag, but lag in the sense of the changeover from warp drive to hyper space!) which may be a clue - hybird turbos perhaps?

No doubt this session has confused me. I like the appeal of a low mileage car, but I can see its shortcomings (understeer, weak brakes, could be way faster) and inevitably one shells out more to buy in the first place. A modified car, brakes, remap, miltek, suspension will have had serious cash spent on it, all the things one would like to do to the car, but the ones I have seen like this have much higher mileages and all have had issues.......

Some serious food for thought - what would you do?

Olly