rfcpatrick09

Hello, everyone.

Since I was in high school (that'd be not many years ago considering I am only 23), Audis were my favourite. Coming from the UK and growing up with seeing so many Ford Fiestas, Focuses, Fiats, Vauxhalls and you know, those small 4 pot engines which are lucky to push 100 hp on a good day, it was a cultural shock to see so many V8s running in the States. Ever since our family moved to the States, I wished to drive a V8, but not the American V8 but the German V8. At the time I was in high school, the best I could have done was a 2000 MBZ ML320 which was my first car back in 2007. After many years of experiencing the German quality, I moved to Berkeley for college and the Bay Area seemed unfriendly to a SUV so I have got a Mini Cooper S. Not exactly masculine but it has been fine for the past 4 years and 78k miles (Bought it at 118k, sold last week at 196k with no engine rebuilt or 6 speed rebuilt!)

Now, with 5.5k I got from my mini and 6k I got from my father as graduation gift, I have moved out to Seattle and will be going to graduate school. So there won't be a big income coming in but will probably be able to spend occasional 7 to 8 hundreds at times if not too frequent.

Sorry for the long and boring grand intro, but since I am now in Seattle, which seems to be much less traffic and more car parks around the city centre compared to SF Bay Area, I thought of a V8 and an Audi once again and came upon this 2004 B6 S4 Cabriolet with 93k miles. It's got a clean title, 6 speed stick shift and been maintained by Audi dealers in Seattle with only one service record missing. Clutch has been replaced 9 months ago so thankfully a big repair in the near future can be avoided. It's priced at 10k but I am probably going to get it down to 9.5k. It was always my dream to have a German V8 with stick shift and now it can be had but I am a bit scared if I will be spending big dollars every other month. Considering it's well maintained and can be verified with the Audi dealer, it seems to be more attractive than other S4's for sale. I've seen a b7 s4 with 80k on the clock for 11k but it's got a rebuilt title and I do really want to get one with the clean title.

Is there anything I need to be aware of? Should I buy it? I mean spending $100 for oil change every 4000 miles and topping up synthetic oil once in a while (heard almost every s4 with that mileage would consume oil) would be totally fine for the experience I would about to have with this beast. I am not much of a convertible person but it seems cleaner than the 4D saloons for sale and having service history which is verifiable despite its age is a big plus for me, just proves that this car was maintained to the standards I expect.

Would I probably need to replace spark plugs? If I have it done at indie, how much would you say it'd cost? After paying dreadful 9.8% sales tax on it (though thankfully KBB is low enough to pay less taxes!!), I would have some left to have it serviced. I would expect this car to survive with no major issues throughout graduate school (4 years) before I get a job to own a RS7 (it will be the best day of my bloody life I swear). I assume I will drive about 10-12k a year on this car so probably the car will have around 145k at the end.

I thought about getting a 04 or 05 MBZ CLK55 AMG but no stick shift is offered on that (what a shame, every proper sports car should have a manual gearbox with an exception of Porsche's finest PDK) and even thought of domestics like Mustang GT but couldn't get myself to actually buy a rubbish like that (No offence to muscle car enthusiasts!). I would really want to buy this car but if persistent problems may occur under my ownership with a stack of hefty amount of bills coming in, I would actually have to look the other way despite I love the S4.

Sorry for being it so long. I was just blown away thinking of the S4 in my garage.

Any inputs would be appreciated

Cheers!

Patrick