Hi, I have been on this forum for a few days now just reading and such. b/c i am on the verge of purchasing a 2000-2002 s4. I have enough money to buy one, chip it, and maybe some piping. But my main question before buying one is what are the reapir costs? I have a camaro right now and every redneck in town has one which makes parts cheap and can fix it myself usually very easy. I want to know what am i looking to do to the car if it has about 70-90k miles. Will in need to replace the turbos soon? what is going to happen that might "surprise me" after i purchase it? I know its a very broad question, and all comments are appreciated. Thanks

 

Hard to know where to begin. My experience is that the car is not reliable - it is finiky - things break or go out of adjustemtn easily - and (not being a mechanic myself) - it is very expensive - parts and labor on these beasts...that being said I totally love this car (my wife thinks I'm nuts and she feels quite the opposite about it)...be prepared to spend $$ early and often....others can likely fill you in on the details - I would enumerate the myriad of things I've had broken/repaired/replace - but to do so right now would seriously depress me...

 

parts and labor can get pricey for the b5 models... but you cant argue with the performance/luxury/awd combo. it helps if you can do some repairs on your own, and there is a VERY good community out there to learn and help you out with repairs..

 

I would agree with the other guys, the more modern they get the more electronic toys are added but that's the future anyway, so its really a case "if you want to move forward" you will encounter these problems regardless of what make your car is, I personally cover most cars because they all encounter similar problems but after a while I got used to the faults now I find the problem easier with new tech tools

 

If you have any mechanical ability you'll be able to work on this car. The most important tools are a VAG COM and the forums. Parts are much more expensive also. Don't believe everything you read online about the car blowing up or having a lot of issues. For every 1 person to have problems there are 20 with non. Internet forums seem to magnify small issues into big ones.

The big expense right off the bat is going to be the timing belt. It's not to hard to do, it just takes time because of all the parts that have to come off to get to it. A shop will charger you close to $1K for the service. Maybe more, maybe less.

 

thanks for the info. a friend of mine has vag com, so i guess that might come in handy. but again, thanks for the help