BuyAudi

What maintenance cost can I expect? When should the timing belt be done soon and how much does it cost?

carkarl

I had a similar situation with an A4 rather than S4. My 1999 A4 mostly sat in storage and so had only around 35k miles on it when I returned it to daily use in 2008. You have to give up on odometer as a notion of service schedule and instead think about the age of rubber and plastic parts. You also need to have a trusted mechanic and an eye/ear for car function yourself. If the S4 engine is anything like the A4 was and hasn't had a timing belt service recently, you should consider it overdue just because of its age. For the A4 the recommendation was every 7 years for timing belt if you didn't reach the mileage target first.

I was never stranded by my car but I did have a lot of service items over the years due to deterioration rather than wear: tires with plenty of tread but too many years for my comfort, driveline mounts, suspension bushings, oil seals in engine and rear differential, torn axle boots, burst power steering line, fuel level sender, thermostat, headlight bulbs, and coolant temperature sensor. All of that happened before I reached 80k miles and this is in California so it had pretty ideal environmental factors.