Rob O

Nearly 100 respondents now ... and some more useless information. : )

<b>Avg. mileage of MY 2000 cars (all):</b> <i>19,008</i>
<b>Avg. mileage of MY 2001 cars (all):</b> <i>7,341</i>

<b>Chipped cars as a percent of Total Polled:</b> <i>38%</i>

<b>Percent of chipped cars by MY:</b>
* MY 2000 - 75%
* MY 2001 - 25%

<b>Current Failure Rate (based solely on poll responses):</b> <i>7.4%</i>

<a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/351567.phtml">CLICK HERE FOR POLL RESULTS THREAD</a>

NASA racer

choosey S4 owners choose chips ;-)

Shredster

Rob, I can't wait to see what kind of numbers you end up with by weeks end.

Rob O

It's on track with the 8.5% seen in donp's 2.7T survey

CatOne

Due to superstition. You know someone who has a failure will pipe up!

-B

John CC

I am not in there - 10/00 built w/t 15k miles - no problems - chipped MTM 9k/APR last 5k

Shredster

<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/351021.phtml">https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/351021.phtml</a</li></ul>

[not Steve] Trac

In your poll and DonP's poll, the failure rate seems to be about 8%. I think that is fair to assume that this number is higher than the national average. There is no way that Audi can stay in business selling cars that fail almost 10% of the time and need costly repairs. If 1 out of every 10 turbo cars that Audi sold had a failed turbo, it would be a scandal of national proportion. Audi would be bankrupt. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the failure rate is higher among AudiWorld posters than among the general public at large.

Now, there is another important statistic: 38% of AudiWorlders have installed chips in their cars. Again, I think it is safe to assume that this is far greater than the general public at large. I think this assumption is correct because I have spoken to dealers and servicemen about chipping and they all seem to say that it is the rare customer that chips an Audi, at least up here in the Northeast. 2 out of 5 harldy qualifies as rare. It is probably more common in SoCal than up here, but still, 40%??? No way. Audi's customers are not all enthusiasts like you guys. Besides, it makes sense that AWers are enthusiasts and thus more likely to chip their cars anyway.

Thus, we have two findings from the survey:

1. AWers chip their cars more than the general public.

2. AWers have higher turbo failure rate than the general public.

Is there a correlation? Perhaps. Or, maybe it is just that enthusiasts are just more likely to drive their cars really hard, in such a way that damages the turbos, and that chipping is a red herring. Maybe its both. We don't have enough data. To be conclusive, I think we would need to take a survey of the Dealers and Service Managers. But, I think that Rob O's survey has definitely proven something: if you chip, you are more likely (for whatever reason) to have a blown turbo than if you don't.

[flame suit on]

NASA racer

if you halve that number you still have an unacceptibly high number AND I have it on good authority that Audi DOES have the highest claim costs in its history on S4s.

golddog

So what is the national turbo failure average? Where does that info come from?