Now the post is gone, must have sold it! On the other hand, you have to drive it before its certified as a great deal. I was at the shop that does some of my Audi work the other day, they work on mostly Audis and Bimmers and there was a real nice looking B5 S4 in the shop that I took a look at. The exterior of the car was near perfect, as well as the interior, but the owner of the shop told me that the car had been abused and needed lots of work as far as the mechanicals and suspension went. This car would have showed up great in an online ad, the body and interior were mint, but whoever bought it would have ended up dumping a ton of $$$$ into the car getting it to drive like it should.

 

I'd think the S line Audis would be somehow pretty beat. People don't just get the S for nothing.

 

I would be scared to buy any S4 without all service records... you'll buy it and end up having to replace turbos and who knows what. It's not that cheap for nothing; people go to kbb before they sell any car for sure.

 

That's funny... I found a black-on-black 2001 S4 manual with 90k miles on it here in Des Moines over the weekend for $6k on Craigslist, talked to the guy and he said he was asking so little because "he thinks" the p-side turbo is starting to go bad, told me it drives fine as-is though. So then I was going to go test-drive it on Monday after work, and before I went I was talking to a buddy of mine who did a lot of work on my A4 about it (he happens to work at an Advance Auto parts store here). After a while, he tells me, "Hey so I just talked to the guy. He came in here to buy some cheap oil for you to drive it; apparently it burns oil like mad and blasts smoke all over the place when it's running."

Needless to say, I did not go drive it. Moral of the story: to quote P.T. Barnum, "If something sounds too good to be true; it is."

[edit] Here's the ad now that he reposted it after I never showed up (with slightly better description of the MAJOR issue): http://desmoines.craigslist.org/cto/1815756135.html

 

hahah thats just funny. good thing you found out about that problem, but yeah if i was going to buy a car like that i would take it to a mechanic first to see if it truly is a good vehicle