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Met the head of marketing for the country at the motor show a couple of weeks ago. Nice bloke, if too honest by Audi standards. Two interesting things he mentioned
- Car was designed with the US in mind, and that explains why the turbo got the flick (but let's not start this discussion again)
- Delivery delays due to reliability issues. Engine tests showed that the 4's engine does not last as long as Audi want it to. Although Audi claims one of the fastest piston speed in the industry, continuous usage in the 8000+ rpm creates fatigue issues. First deliveries for Europe were planned around August/September, now set back to January in the hope that the team can crack the issue til then

While I'm sure they will, it sheds some light on possible reasons for the delays

Interesting point about the pistons!!.. maybe they need to use a different alloy?

Let hope we don't hae another saga like the 'bendy' wheels one

When testing at the Nordschliefe they aparently got through 3 engines in a week there due to the top half of the engine melting
So i think it ws back to the drawing board
Cheers
jr

Sounds like there going to have problems ala BMW M3

I hear a twin turbo V6 revving up in the background sounds good too.

Brooner wrote:Sounds like there going to have problems ala BMW M3

Indeed.....and look at the effect it has had on residuals for the M3.
Fingers crossed Audi get the engine problems sorted.....for the customers sake or the RS4 is going to be tared with the M3 brush.
Cheers
fc

Exactly what top end problems do M3s have?

There were more than a few cases over here where M3 engines failed and had to be replaced.

I was speaking to one of the German mechanics at silverstone yesterday who was looking after the cars for the RS4 driving day, he said that their were no engine problems at all with the cars. They had been running about 15 cars since August on various track events and he told me that they had not experienced any engine problems at all. The driving day was excellent and the car i drove was fantastic and never missed a beat all day and was everything and more than i had expected.

Good man Adrian.

Give Audi a fair chance, 'reliability issues' can only exist when they occur on customer cars.

don wrote:Exactly what top end problems do M3s have?

M3 did'nt have any top end problems - the problems were a combination of connecting rod bearings not being built to correct tolerance by the supplier and oil pump problems. This resulted in a number of M3 engines failing and if you ignored the warning sounds then a number failed with the connecting rod leaving the block sideways.
It took BMW some time to fix with new bearings,rod bolts and oil pump but I've not heard of any engines failing on cars with the revised parts fitted. Interestingly, the most highly tuned M3 - the CSL has proved to be extremely reliable engine wise.
Top end problems are more difficult to sort out and Audi might have their work cutout sorting this out by January - I wonder if they'll have to lower the rev limit to get over the problem?

Two points of issue............. how can an RS2 be the original, when the quattro was named UR, german for original
Seems the problem was overheating and this can be caused by many things, lower rev limit may not eradicate the problem if the engine is running too hot, seems to be a common problem with FSI, as the fuel is not able to cool the cylinders.............

simple1 wrote:Two points of issue............. how can an RS2 be the original, when the quattro was named UR, german for original

I presume you're referring to my signature line - by original I mean the first in the line of RS models produced by Audi not the original Quattro or UR Quattro as it was later called by Audi once they started producing quattro versions of 80,90 Coupe e.t.c. The UR Quattro was one of the best cars I've ever owned (lucky enough to own two of them). Wish I'd kept them as you seem to have done with some of yours.