Another thinking about buying an RS4 thread. Advice/opinions needed

B6/7 S4/RS4
#4

Link to said ibis…? Is it the one with the 20" wheels and the euro interior who posted on Az?

The motor is night and day different to the s4 4.2. It shares displacement rounded to 4.2 and 8 cylinders buy that’d be about it. Completely new when it was launched. Relating to problems with timing components in have never heard of an rs4 with chainwork needed. There are some with 150,000-170,000 miles on them. Especially in Europe. Maybe ask that question on rs246 where all the oldest highest mileage rs4s live.

They can burn some oil… As can all modern audis it seems. My friends r8 5.2 burns a quart every 4000 miles. My own b8 a4 avant 2.0t was burning oil and received new internals under warranty for it.

The rs4 carbon causing catastrophic motor failure theme is pretty rare but has happened to 2-3 guys I’ve seen on forums. Out of 10,000 rs4s that’s not a plague I guess. We don’t know the whole story.

Overall they are fantastic cars out of the box. I agree with Daytona… Get one with cpo if you can so you know that there are no embedded problems when you buy it. Sounds like we are warning the hell out of you but that’s not the case. Forums just thrive on worst case scenario. So should buyers so they know what they’re in for

P. S. Rs4 motor replacement via dealer equals $25,000. Finding one to diy replace? Just about impossible because you’d need a written off rs4. Hard enough to find a regular one to buy!

#5

Great info, thanks Saki!

Actually from what you guys are telling me about this car/engine I am getting more comfortable with the purchase. Really I was expecting to get the typical laundry list of problems and things to look out for. I dont think I would get close to putting 100k on a car like this but hearing that there are many with 100k plus miles out there is nice. It makes me feel better going after one right now with 40k plus miles and not having to search for the lowest miles one possible.

Here is the link to the Ibis.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Audi-RS4-Base-Sedan-4-Door-2008-Audi-RS4-Sedan-RARE-IBIS-White-43k-miles-Excellent-Condition-/190804228885?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item2c6cd17b15#ht_500wt_1182

Its on Ebay, which Im not sure how I feel about. It sounds like the car is well maintained but it is not CPO and doesnt come with any warranty. Owner claims all service was done through Audi. It looks clean and I love Ibis but not a huge fan of the interior. Mileage and price look pretty hard to beat though.

I would definitely want some sort of warranty on the car so what companies do you guys recommend as far as aftermarket warranty?

They really do seem like awesome cars. Now I just need to see how long I can control myself and keep the thing stock before I start buying everything from JHM to throw on it!

#6

Contact mickf29 and jareds941 on quattrofail and ask if they know that car. They should know every rs4 within 250 miles if portland. If they don’t know it, that means it’s probably a guy who doesn’t go on forums, doesn’t track it, and doesn’t mod cars. Potentially great this when you think about it.

he gets it serviced at Sunset. Mick said those guys will do a carbon clean for like $700. Get that thrown in to the deal. If you can’t, have him do it before you pick it up. Call the dealer and ask them about the car too, actually.

#7

also if you decide that you really hate the interior, what would be required to convert it to black?

If it is just door cards and seats, that’s a breeze. The seats are often put up for sale. Some guys buy the Euro RS4 seats and then sell their US seats. Probably around $2000 or so for black. Maybe cheaper. So you can buy their US seats and door cards potentially. You can likely sell your cream RS4 interior to A4 guys for like $1250-1750. That means the cost is only about $1000 max to switch.

Some guys who go Euro however will keep their stock interior for when they sell the car so they can part out the Euro…which brings me to the next option.

You can also go euro interior if you want if someone here has one. Costs about $5,000 I believe…and you can likely sell your RS4 interior to an A4 owner for $1250-1750. Worst case = Euro RS4 interior for $3750.

Bottom line the interior is maybe a $1000 problem and an easy swap. If it involves the headliner, it’s more of a pain now. If you own a stage III B5 S4, I assume you work on cars, and won’t find changing a headliner and seats a big deal.

#8

Thanks for the heads up. I will contact those guys and see if they have any info on the car.

If I was going to move forward with this one I would ask the owner to take it in to do a carbon clean for sure. while it was in for carbon cleaning I would consider having them do a full look over and possibly a boroscope of cylinders as well just to be safe.

Thats exactly what I was thinking about the interior. I was actually searching ebay germany and the forum classifieds last night and it looks like its not too hard to find black interior. There are actually some US spec front seats in black for sale on AudiZine right now. I would love to get some Euro spec ones. And like you said, if I sell my white interior, the cost really isnt too bad. I dont do all the work on my B5 but something like seats is no problem. I have a friend who owns a high end body shop so the headliner wouldnt be an issue at all if it needed some custom work.

#9

not sure you can boroscope cylinders easily on this car. May want to check on that.

#10

I’d say there’s 0 probability of the owner paying for the cc considering its
already listed below fair market value. But if the owner is really desperate to
unload it I guess anything can happen. I’m actually having a cc and boroscope
of my valves done now before my CPO runs out so I don’t think it’s too hard,
but that could change since I have no idea what the labor charge is for that yet.
It’s pretty hard to find a euro interior these days. The main supplier to the US market
turned out to be a crew that was stealing cars in Europe and stripping them. They’re
all in jail now. Also some additional cost involved in adjustin some of the harnesses or
something to properly function in US cars. There are a few black RS4 interiors around for
sale though. Overall I’d say it seems like I good deal. If I totaled my car today somehow
Id be buying it after an inspection. Aftermarket warranties once the manufacturer warranty
has expired are pricey. Expect 3500-4k as opposed to the $1k Audi charges
to smack a CPO on it if they were brokering the deal, as I did with my EBay RS4 purchase.

#11

should be able to do it through the spark plugs holes, sooo not so easy (for it being someone else’s car)

#12

I have a borescope and my damn lense/led light combo won’t fit down the spark plug hole. >:(

I haven’t looked but I’m hoping I can find a smaller interchangeable unit that will fit.

#13

I saw an Ibis on Autotrader, I’ll check in a few if its the same one mentioned above. I’m thinking it is but not sure.

Love your WB Avant btw! Did you purchase the car as a WB or did you have the conversion done?

#14

You had better buy that car before I do! lol, I’m probably not going to actually do it, but I’ve been staring at that car for the past two weeks and dreaming about clicking the buy it now. Great price for how rare it is, but the interior swap is a must. The first auction didn’t hit the reserve, so I doubt this one will either.

Fidelity seems to be the consensus on aftermarket warranties. I’ve never owned one myself, but have seen a lot of good reviews on the forums through the years.

#15

what did the first auction get up to?

#16

Probably true the owner wouldn’t be willing to pay for the cc but thats not really an issue. Im going to look more in to the boroscope thing but if Im going to pay for an aftermarket warranty anyways it might not be necessary and worth it.

Interesting info on the euro interiors. Bummer to hear its harder to find than I thought. US Spec would be fine.

Are you saying you paid for the Audi CPO for your Ebay purchase or an aftermarket warranty?

Haha ya I was looking at it on the previous auction as well. I was pretty surprised it didnt hit the reserve. Im seriously considering it and only thing holding me back really is the interior. I love sprint blue also so Im going back and forth if I should just wait and try and find a clean one of those with black interior and not screw with interior swap…and while Im waiting another Ibis could possibly pop up. Spring is coming around and thats when people usually start thinking/listing their cars so there might be a rise in inventory here soon… Maybe even the release of the new S6/S7 might push some more in to the market. I dont know… decisions decisions.

I will take a look in to Fidelity.

#17

About $35-36k if I recall correctly

#18

There was a sprint blue for real cheap on ebay a few weeks back as well that didn’t sell. I believe the buy it now was around $29-30k and it had about 70k miles. It was at some no name dealer in Wisconsin though and looked dirty as hell. Also had the white/cream interior. Probably why it didn’t sell!

#19

I saw an Ibis on Autotrader, I’ll check in a few if its the same one mentioned above. I’m thinking it is but not sure.

Love your WB Avant btw! Did you purchase the car as a WB or did you have the conversion done?

#20

I believe the autotrader one is the Ti package that a guy on AZ has listed. Very clean, but he’s also very firm on his price of $46.5k and I believe it’s pending sale.

#21

I think that is the one for sale on AudiZine Jupiter mentioned. The car does look well maintained and if the sale doesn’t go through I would probably contact him and see if we could work something out. $46k seems a little high considering I could buy the other Ibis and with the money saved buy and swap a complete black interior and still have some cash in my pocket.

Thank you for the compliment! Except its a WB sedan not avant. I wish I would have done an avant but oh well.

I bought the car when it was in pieces. I was friends with the previous owner and he worked at a high end performance shop local to me and had everything sitting brand new in boxes and ready to be built but decided not to go through with it. So I basically got a B5 S4 with 30k on the clock and thousands of dollars worth of OEM RS4 and aftermarket parts for not much more than people were getting for well sorted normal stage 3 cars at the time. Plus included in the purchase price was that he had to have his shop build and put the rest of the car back together for… body work, mechanical, everything. Quite a bit of custom work outside of the widebody was done on it also. Quite a bit of money has been put in to it since then, especially with the recent run of work at JHM, but i got pretty lucky with what I paid for it originally.

#22

I bough my car on ebay and it was a seller in Miami. I was able to get the Miami Audi dealer to CPO it for me buy essentially having the seller sell the car to them which they bought from him with my money. So they only charged me about $700 for their services which was split with the seller and another 41k for the CPO. Was forced to change the pads there which they raped me on, but overall it was one of the best situations to be in. But this car as well as almost every RS4 are already out of factory warranty so it can no longer be CPO’d.

#23

Sorry Ibis,

Not sure why I thought Avant, sedan or Avant doesn’t matter… something about a wide body B5 and of course an RS4.