Looking for my first B5 RS4

[Zero1]

Evening all, just posted on the welcome forum to say hello.

Looking to buy my first RS4 and having read all the usual buyers guides on the forums, I'm pretty confident of not ending up with a bad one but it's always good to get involved in a good forum, so here I am!

Max budget is £11,000 with £2000 down and the rest on finance, this means it's going to have to be trade rather than private which is a shame as it counts out a lot of enthusiast cars and adds a little premium. I have to do it like this as its one of a few things I 'need' right now and business has just taken a great turn so i'm confident running costs won't be a worry.

I understand I'm not going to find a perfect one for £11k but I'm not bad with a spanner - rebuilt a mk2 Golf from a shell with a 250bhp 20vt and lot of other big spec bits. It also seems like the engines are pretty bombproof, am I missing something? It looks like 100,000 miles isn't as bad a proposition as it would be for anything other than an 80's Volvo and that if it was going to break, it would have done by 100k.... I'd also be looking at taking it to see MRC if was a standard one and would definitely be up for buying one a little tweaked already. It might sound a little premature since I don't even own one yet but I just know I'll miss that bonkers factor of previous cars.

Is it ok to post up a couple I have been looking at, or would that be frowned upon?

Any advice or comments would be appreciated. I'm hoping to find the right one in the next couple of weeks as I'm over on the 4th for a week and have a bit of travelling around south England to do

Cheers.

[RS6MAN]

You have pm

[RS2_Russ]

Just be careful; the engines are bomb-proof if looked after properly, although the camshafts can wear even then.....but some have gone to 185,000 miles+
Also, there have been clocked cars about - check the forums carefully for warnings on cars, or even about a car you're interested in beforehand.

They are not cheap cars to run, with expensive parts and a bit of a thirst. Take a good look at the history and if possible go for a forum/enthusiast's car as it will have been kept 'fresh'. Things like brake discs, suspension, control arms and the like will be near or past their design lives now, so try to get one that's had these sort of things renewed.

If you need finance to buy these cars, you may seriously struggle to keep it in fine fettle, after which the bills will spiral. There is a red one in Devon for sale that has clearly got to that stage, for instance, and the bills would be over £6K to fix now.

[Zero1]

Just be careful; the engines are bomb-proof if looked after properly, although the camshafts can wear even then.....but some have gone to 185,000 miles+
Also, there have been clocked cars about - check the forums carefully for warnings on cars, or even about a car you're interested in beforehand.

They are not cheap cars to run, with expensive parts and a bit of a thirst. Take a good look at the history and if possible go for a forum/enthusiast's car as it will have been kept 'fresh'. Things like brake discs, suspension, control arms and the like will be near or past their design lives now, so try to get one that's had these sort of things renewed.

If you need finance to buy these cars, you may seriously struggle to keep it in fine fettle, after which the bills will spiral. There is a red one in Devon for sale that has clearly got to that stage, for instance, and the bills would be over £6K to fix now.

Thanks for that, Do you know if it's ok to post links to the ones I'm looking at?

I don't really need to finance it, it's more the budget I have set myself as I'm keen for a bit of 'potential' but thanks for the advice, I've never owned anything other that absolute money pits. I'm actually leaning towards it being cheaper, even after reading all the usual horror stories.

This car will be a keeper for quite some time now (Just married so pretty much the last one I'm going to get away with for the moment) and appeals to me for the obvious reasons - Engine, Quatrro performance, Turbo addict etc... But also because it looks professional, it's a bit of a sleeper and does not have the associations of the like of the M3 and VWR species. Not that I'm stereotyping!