Piston Slap: Being Cool With Burning Oil
Andy writes:
TTAC: I have a question. My fiancée owns a 2008 Audi A4 2.0T with just under 15,000 miles on it. Tonight, the low oil indicator light came. So I said I’d get it checked out tomorrow. But before doing that, I figured I’d do a quick search to search about other A4 owners having oil issues. Turns out, they are. Both on topix.com and facebook.com, there are posts regarding the 2008 A4 2.0T burning a unexpected amount of oil and essentially Audi dealership and corporate claiming this is normal for turbo engines.
What do you guys think? Have you heard of this?
Sajeev Answers:
It’s amazing how we’ve regressed back to a world where this level of oil consumption is an acceptable manufacturing practice. What’s next, hand crank starters?
But consider yourself lucky this Audi isn’t a V-10 powered BMW M5 or M6. The one I tested ate a quart of oil every 3000 miles. And that’s perfectly acceptable to the folks working behind the BMW badge, too.
You didn’t give me all the information, so let’s make some assumptions. The Internet says Audi has 10,000 mile oil change intervals, starting after the first change at 5000 miles. If this regiment is followed, your fiancée’s car is burning a quart (probably) of oil every 10,000 miles. Which is disappointing, but not terribly surprising. The AudiWorld forum agrees.
And if you’re still upset, just remember how much more oil (and gas @12mpg) the BMW M5/M6 burns. So, consider yourself lucky. And perhaps you and your soon-to-be-wife might consider running the hell away from this car when the warranty expires. Relative to other makes, European cars are just too expensive to service as they age. It’s downhill from here, dude.
(Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com)
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Wow. Hope the original poster of all that Audi defect info is monitoring this thread. Here is my dilemma. I could sell my 2004 A6 S-Line with 86,000kms for $19,000 (Canadian). Only used car I can find that appeals to me is a 2004 Mercedes S500 with 60,000km on the ODO. Asking price is $36,900. 0-60 times are the same for both (6.1 sec), fuel economy numbers about the same, my Audi is likely more nimble due to sport suspension and weighing slightly less. I put about 14,000km a year on my Audi. So, assuming that my Audi falls victim to the supposedly inevitable Audi repairs...will it cost me $17,900 in repairs in the next 5 years? And if it will, thus justifying the extra cash to buy the S500 since I will supposedly be spending it anyways, will the S500 never require any repairs in the next 5 years? Honestly, I cannot see the A6 costing me $17,900 worth of repairs in the next 5 years at 14,000km a year. I don’t think the “dump it when the warranty runs out” argument makes a lot of sense in my case and most others when talking about a 2004 or higher model Audi. Unless, of course, you are willing to get into a civic.
PeregrineFalcon entirely misses the point: These cars have interiors that cause import fanatics to writhe in sexual ecstasy. The fact that they are mechanically expensive and unreliable pieces of sh!t is beside the point. I recently, for approximately two months, along with my daughter in law, temporarily splurged on a New Beetle, and a Jetta station wagon, respectively. Each car had about 50 k miles on them at the time of purchase. On both, the automatic transmissions (A $5,000 repair) almost immediately went south. I quickly traded mine off and lost nothing because of my temporary insanity. She is trading hers off for a japanese blobmobile this weekend. With German cars, you have been warned.