WHAT a wonderful driving experience!! The pulling power of that normally aspirated, 4.2 litre V8 mated to a 6 speed ZF auto gearbox was simply addictive. The Quattro 4WD system was amazing, one winter I drove that car on normal (summer) tyres all the way through France from south to north during a heavy snowfall and she never put a foot (wheel) wrong, it was snowing so heavily that as the snowploughs cleared the snow fell and covered both lanes of the motorway.
I purchased the car (an Audi Avant S4 B6) at the and of 2019 in the UK and the seller drove the car down from London to our meeting at Roma airport. He was less than totally honest when he told me that the airbag warning light had JUST come on as he drove into the hotel carpark, I later discovered that the Audi had suffered a front end impact at some stage. But I was so busy looking at the Recaro light grey leather interior and all the rest of the goodies, love at first sight!
We then hit the dreaded lockdown so I drove her very little for 2 years but then as soon as I could I visited my son every weekend or two, he was working in the far north of Italy so the S4 and I did many very long trips. Such a comfortable drive. She had two or three major design defects. 1. As the spare wheel was full size the fuel tank was quite small at 63 litres which gave me a range of only about 450 kilometres maximum. 2. The engine timing belt had plastic followers which wore out very quickly. To change the chain and the followers the engine must be removed from the car as the chain was next to the firewall so this would be a 6,000 Euro operation (luckily mine had been done and I had a full service history from an official Audi dealer in Switzerland). 3. The gearing was far too low so any motorway cruising above 130 kph really drank the fuel, of course you dont buy a V8 to save fuel but…..
In my two driving years post COVID I covered about 30k kilometers and I loved the car, I have now sold her on in the UK, I miss her and I hope that the next owner enjoys her as much as I did. GREAT car and super memories!
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