ChesapeakeTechie

I am going to look at a used S4 tomorrow offered by a dealer in MD. It's a 2001 Tiptronic w/45k miles on it and they are asking $19.9k. Seems a bit high based on what I've found elsewhere, but I want to see the condition of the car.
Is there anything I need to be concerned about with regards to reliability? I've heard some issues about the seals on the Torque Converter, can this fail at any time? Does anyone have an estimate on the repair cost?
With regards to extended warranties, I am seeing them running $2-3k for an additional 40-50k miles of coverage. I don't think I'm going to opt for one, thoughts on this?
The car has black leather interior, how well does this interior hold up over time?
Thanks everyone for their insight and I will let everyone know how the car turns out.

Thanks!

ricestang

my car came with an extended warranty and they didn't cover much.

Tgr_Clw

The B5 S4 is the most reliable car evAr (sort of like the B6 S4 being the fastest car evAr).

S4_Cinci (I S'edTFA)

they require significantly more maint time and $ than your typical Japanese or US built car. Tip tranny can have problems with internals besides the torque converter. These are made by ZF and fluid change is a hotly debated subject - Audi says fluid is lifetime fill, ZF says change it at least every 60k miles; but many dealers refuse to open one up if it isn't leaking. They can cost $5k+ to repair if they die.

The S4 likes synth oil changed regularly (every 5k, some like to change more often & others less often) and ones that have been beat on can have expensive problems. Look for any signs of oil leakage/burning oil smell. The LED display on the dash fails on every one - just a ? of when. Many people will work on this car, but only a fraction of those actually know what they are doing, so be careful who works on it.

Rearding car and I love mine, but my dealer's service dept sucked and I have had a lot of repairs and spent a lot of $ on it. That being said, I love it and have never even considered selling it. Most people either love these cars or hate them - they isn't a lot of ambiguity regarding it. They are not reliable and a turbo swap can run you $5-6k easily. If they are going they will sound like a nuclear powered dentist drill (if you can hear it from a block away, you have it - otherwise they will make some normal spooling noise but you'll know if they are going bad).

Good luck and try and read some of the tech articles - someone posted a used car buying guide for the S4 a while back - search for it.

vegasS4

mine covered tons of stuff

ricestang

<ul><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFrpY3lqTHY">b5 ownage</a></li></ul>

S4_Cinci (I S'edTFA)

<ul><li><a href="https://www.audiworld.com/tech/misc45.shtml">One article, there are more...</a></li></ul>

S4_Cinci (I S'edTFA)

<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/1635995.phtml">https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/1635995.phtml</a</li></ul>

TwinTurboTerror

leather interior holding up. Of all the interior choices (grey leather, leather/alcantara), black leather is obviously the most durable.

ChesapeakeTechie

Thanks for the link. I did check it out.

Are there any usual mileage guidelines where the tip tranny's start to fail? Has AoA put out any sort of recall on the bad seals that were prone to failure? Is this an issue on the A4's as well?