gdm

I picked up my S4 today.

Yes, yes, yes, I know I said I wasn't getting it until August...my plans changed.

Anyways, I am going to spare you all a lot of ranting about how fantastically wonderful the car is and how cool all the little "oh, that's the way it should be!' features are, since I am sure you have all felt it yourselves. But I do have a few questions....

1: When braking hard from 75 mph to a stop (on a less-than-flawless state highway in moderate rain) the car pulled slightly to the right, rather than stopping in a perfectly straight line. Is this something that needs to be checked out and corrected immediately, or is it likely due to the conditions under which I was driving?

2: My driver's side front door doesn't seem to line up quite right with the driver's side passenger door. We are literally talking about a 1 to 3 mm difference, and it might just be in the weatherstripping. Any thoughts?

3: My sunroof makes a sort of funny noise at some velocities. Sort of like it goes into resonance. Sometimes this is fixed by adjusting the rear windows, sometimes not. I haven't really experimented much with it (alternating half-hour periods of rain and sun today), but any wisdom would be appreciated.

Those are the big three...other than that I have a handful of minor nitpicks. Like, can I change the brightness of the display? Why on earth isn't there a change drawer in the front dash?

I am also soliciting advice on how to break the engine in properly. Keeping the throttle at less than 3/4ths of wide open (god this is hard ), trying to vary RPM widely...anything more concrete?

Thanks for all the advice in advance. I'll get some photos taken pretty soon, but I'm sure it's nothing you all haven't seen a million times before. But that'll give me an excuse to post a bunch more questions.

Yours in S4ness,

/gdm<p>--
gdm
'00 Silver/Onyx

mattchow

<p>[ordered(01 s4 nogaro/blue alcantara)]
[current(98.5 a4 2.8 qtip silver/grey)]
mods://clear corners;clear side markers;eyebrows;m&s car mats;jahn h1 superblue;a!grille;a!spoiler; brullen 3rd gen exhaust;llumar metallic tint

Cameron

I'm betting that you were on a highway that is significantly canted for rain/snow removal... the car will brake in the direction that the road is canted, just as steering will ride slightly off to that side. If this is not the case, check the inflation of your right front tire, it may be low.

A door misalignment of 3mm+ would be rather serious (unheard of aside from cars that have been in accidents), of 1, 2mm is likely just due to the expansion of the rubber parts in the door assembly and small inaccuracies in the door fitment. The alignment of certain panels seemed to change very, very slightly according to temparture on our '96 A4. If the doors make the same noise when closed as the opposite side and still have good noise/wind/water seals, the tolerances involved must be slight.

Most cars with sunroofs have this magic velocity, seems to be around 35mph give or take... the rear windows buffet when down at 25mph. You are correct in your observation that it is a resonance, there is a spoiler at the forward edge of the sunroof to narrow the scope of speeds at which this phenomenon occurs at audible frequencies. In short, it's a "live with it" problem at certain speeds, but if you are hearing noise at a wide range of speeds, there may be other problems with the sunroof assembly (VERY rare, never heard of a problem like this in three years on the Forum)...

doctorb

Just stuff the change in the ashtray!! Some people have added the mushy side of velcro to the ashtray bottom...no noise and it looks kinda schweet. I pad the bottom of the tray with emergency gas money.

The roads may be crowned, but yes check the tire pressures to make sure they are perfectly even. In fact, just get rid of em and put on some Yoko's or the new Pzero Rossos in 235 rather than 225. =)

Have the dealer make sure the sunroof is aligned correctly...every single car that i've been in with a sunroof has had sunroof murmurs and creaks. S4, LX470, civic....etc. The alignment will decrease the creaks you might get when you go over driveways and stuff...the wind noise can be cured by opening a window or 2.

Break in tip: SET THE SPEED ALARM!!!! I unwittingly flew up from San Diego to Los Angeles at 100mph during break in...only and had one jaunt to 120...i seriously did'nt know i was going that fast.... And NO OFF THE LINE RUNS!!!! My stock broker friend pushed me into doing a 0-60 run...i took it easy but still ran it up to 6000rpm at like 128 miles... at 3/4 throttle. Learn from my sins!! Dont do it!! (Although, i can't attest to actual damage being done)

I don't think you can adjust the brightness of the display...i like it bright like that though, people see the white needles blur when i zip past them at unholy speeds!

Have the door checked, it must be the rubber weather stripping....or too much brau was consumed when your car was being put together. Either way it should be fixable.

Welcome aboard! Word of advice: CHIP THE BEAST. And if it fits your fancy bolt on a cat-back exhaust. I've got the uuc and it sounds SOOOOOOOOO GOOD. I also have the chip (mtm) and it's SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD.

=)<p>-Cheng-

Starving S4
Donations Gladly Accepted.

George @ BostonAudi

1) Its normal, you probably weren't on a truely flat road. Most crown, and if there's a crown, you're lucky if you only notice it when you're braking. This car bucks like a rabid beast on uneven ground.

2) Get the dealer to check it. That's not right.

3) Watch the video that same with the car. Or read the manual. It explains that in both places

I'd tell you the answer, but there's actually a lot of other important and non-intuitive things they tell you in there.

CobaltJacket

Don't open the sunroof all the way. You'll notice there's a point after you've turned the dial about 135 degrees that it offers significant resistance. This is the magic point at which the sunroof starts causing buffetting. When you're going fast, just make sure it isn't past this.<p>-Chicago Joe
Lakes Region quattro Club (Website is at <I><A HREF="http://www.lrqc.org/">http://www.lrqc.org/</A></I>)
2000 Laser Red S4M

Just a stock S4

Better, but still bad. Been through this one at length many times.