Restoration-Mini

Technical Forums => Restorations => Topic started by: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 02:55:36 PM

Title: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 02:55:36 PM
So, we made a change......

Went from an Allroad to a Smallroad

Went from an A6 to an A4

Went from 2004 to 2014

Went from 87K miles to 67K miles

Went from air suspension to springs

Went from a V-6 to an I-4

Went from two turbos to one

Went from 250hp to 220hp

Went from 4200lbs to 3800 lbs

Went from 225-17's to 245-18's

Went from 14-20mpg to 20-28mpg

Went from 5 speeds to 8 speeds

Went from 6 speed heated seats to 3 speed

Lost a few options, gained a few options, and all it cost was a stack of money!   77.gif



Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: BruceK on August 01, 2020, 03:01:09 PM
Congrats on the new car!

I'm guessing one of the things you didn't mention is the new one does not have those super troublesome suspension airbags?
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 03:06:14 PM
I did in fact mention that, and yes - it has real springs.

The ride is a touch firmer and more responsive, I'm thinking that's as much due to the 18" wheels as anything. The brakes are better too, but everyone complained about the mushy brakes on the old Allroads.....including me.

So far we're still getting used to it, Rose is in the process of "moving in" to her new car, moving all the ton of crap she carries with her (why she needs a wagon, I guess) from one to the other, trying to get the Sirius subscription changed over, getting the Homelink.....erm, linked. and so on.....   ;D

We're going to go visit her brother at Lake of the Ozarks in a week or so for his birthday, that will be the first road trip......

There was nothing wrong with the old one, but I just had a feeling things were looming just over the horizon - we should get a pretty long grace period with this one where I don't have to worry about it for a while...especially since we drive so few miles a year now - it will be 4 years before we hit the miles the other one had. I wanted to get a much newer one - 2017 or 2018 but we didn't find any locally in color/interior that she liked, and this one popped up so we went down and bought it.

Edit: Ha! She just called me from the car so clearly she got the phone paired!
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: 94touring on August 01, 2020, 03:23:54 PM
Very nice  4.gif
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: BruceK on August 01, 2020, 03:49:33 PM
Quote from: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 03:06:14 PM
I did in fact mention that, and yes - it has real springs.


My bad. Need to brush up on my reading comprehension!

Ten years newer should mean more refinement and improved reliability too! 
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: Willie_B on August 01, 2020, 03:52:56 PM
It took my wife a few weeks to remember what her new car was when looking for it in a parking lot.

Rose's new can looks snazzy with that 2 tone paint.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 04:11:42 PM
I'm hopeful that the simpler design means fewer problems - and 10 years newer should help too! But truthfully, the old one really was reliable too - air springs not included!

The old one had a sort of two tone arrangement too.....dark grey bumpers, arches and roof.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 01, 2020, 05:29:44 PM
OK, she got the phone, garage door openers and Sirius programmed, now she's working on the power seats with the remote thingys....the remote will move the seats, mirrors, set the radio to your favorite station and who knows what else. The car also has memory for her music and other files, and it has Nav and of course backup camera. Learning how to use the MMI computer thing in the car - which controls just about everything - or at least programs it is a fairly major undertaking, but it's far easier on this than a Benz or Beemer.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: jeff10049 on August 01, 2020, 07:10:14 PM
Nice at some point those looming things do come up. It's great to make a 10 year jump should be good to go for a while.


I have drove the same year and engine as the old one and also the same year and engine as the new one. I could not really tell a difference in performance the 4 cylinder seemed to have plenty of torque down low. It was several months between the two so maybe my memory wasn't great but sure seemed like the little 4 did about as good as the 6 to me.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: Scargo on August 02, 2020, 08:58:25 AM
Bimmer
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 02, 2020, 09:05:10 AM
Bimmer?

No, it's an Audi Allroad.......

Edit - OK, I understand now - a Beemer is a motorcycle, a Bimmer is a car - got it!
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: jeff10049 on August 02, 2020, 04:21:31 PM
I don't get the bimmer?
slang for BMW. But how is that relevant?
Just curious?

Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: BruceK on August 02, 2020, 07:24:05 PM
Quote from: jeff10049 on August 02, 2020, 04:21:31 PM
I don't get the bimmer?
slang for BMW. But how is that relevant?
Just curious?

Referenced several comments above.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: jeff10049 on August 02, 2020, 10:28:32 PM
Ahhhh. I'm a little slow on the uptake I get it all now. A correction on Dave saying Beemer.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: jedduh01 on August 03, 2020, 09:15:47 AM
Congrats . That all road really gets a bad wrap!    and I think you being hands on helped yourself handle it but if you were a pure Audi to the Dealer owner... you would be in for a world of hurt.. it would only decline more over time...

Hoovie did a recent video of the Allroad...



VW Audi group has imporved their complexities and quailty over the past 10 years _ We wont mention the diesel lying.. but yes you will get good service out of her!
Congrats!


Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on August 06, 2020, 02:54:03 PM
Today's fun with cars.....

Rose noticed that the cap over the front towing eye hole was partly broken, so I called Audi today to see about ordering one - the price they gave me was .......well, just silly! $55 plus tax for a small plastic cap. And that's in primer!

So I go online and sleuth around a bit and bingo! $6.63 and free shipping, from a place (probably an Audi dealer?) in Pennsylvania.

The only other thing the car needs is a tether for the gas cap which is broken too, but you can only get that by buying a new $35 cap. I'll look into that too, but I can live without the tether.

Lastly, I took the front license plate holder off since this is Kansas and we don't have a front plate, and it's somewhat unfinished looking under it, so I ask the dealer about that and they say I would have to get a whole new grill, as Audi supplies grills with or without the front plate holder, depending on which state the car is sold in. That sounds like complete BS to me as we are right on the state line and Missouri does require a front plate. Still doing research on that.....I suppose it's possible they only supply the car with the front plate holder?
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on November 02, 2020, 02:57:12 PM
So, on the trip to the Ozarks we took shortly after getting the car we averaged a little over 30 mpg - better than expected. The seats were comfy and the ride quiet and smooth, although the 6 is just a smidge smoother than the 4.

One thing we're not sure about - you cannot turn the radio off! Nope, you can mute it temporarily but it's always on in the background! And every time you start the car again - it 's on at whatever volume you had it at last. In Rose's case that's usually turned up pretty loooouuuud!!!!

It lowers the volume when you put it in reverse, which is interesting, but then into drive and it comes up again.

The good news........I haven't had to fix anything on it!

Oh, and like current BMW, Porsche and MINIs and probably others, it doesn't have an oil dipstick. You have to ask the car if the oil's OK. You can also ask it when it was last serviced, what the tire pressures are and a whole host of other things.......

We're still learning.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on January 26, 2021, 06:09:51 PM
So here we are right at 6 months and so far.....nothing to report. Of course we haven't done a lot of miles on it either, I think we just crossed 69K.

No idea about mileage as we fill it so rarely now and Testarosie likes to zoom....she averaged 14 on her other car - in town of course.

But I guess no news is good news. My techie bride figured out the MMS pretty quickly and has adapted to it readily: things she really likes are the bluetooth interface, the slots for SSD cards for her music, the backup camera and the auto opening rear hatch.

Likewise the Blue MINI spends an inordinate amount of time in the driveway these days.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: cstudep on January 26, 2021, 07:18:14 PM
Quote from: MiniDave on January 26, 2021, 06:09:51 PM
Likewise the Blue MINI spends an inordinate amount of time in the driveway these days.

I have never put so few miles on my vehicles as I did in 2020. It's amazing how quickly the miles can accumulate when daily driving back and forth to work, even when it's a pretty short distance and since I have been working from home for nearly a year now all those miles were saved. We also didn't take our usual vacation over the summer so that was 1500+ miles saved.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on September 05, 2021, 05:09:50 PM
We just crossed over 70K and I had to do my first repair on the new car, and in typical Audi/BMW/Mercedes/VW fashion it cost a buttload more than it should have.

What happened is the sensor that tells you if you get low on coolant failed, and when it would randomly alert that the coolant was low (it wasn't) it would do so with an incredibly loud warning chime and and a red light in the middle of the dash! The bride was not happy as it scared the bejeebus out of her the first few times it did it.

Danger Will Robinson!!!!!   :-\

So I did a little sleuthing and found this is prevalent on VW's too, and on them it's a small sensor that costs about $6 from the dealer. So with a song in my heart I ran down to the Audi dealer to buy one of these nice little sensors where the parts guy informed that that on MY car you cannot buy the sensor, nor can you remove it from the tank, it's molded in and I would have to buy the whole new tank for $85, including freight, dealer prep and tax and license.

So I did, and to Audi's credit it was a 5 minute fix, the hoses are held on with an interesting and easily removed clip and I saved the expensive special Audi only coolant and poured it into the new tank. Job done and no more crazy light show on the dash!

But come on! Can't buy the sensor?  It got put in there by someone, why can't I change it out? Oh yeah, moneys......lots of moneys.  8.gif :-[ ::)
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: 94touring on September 05, 2021, 05:56:10 PM
I hate that kind of stuff!
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: tsumini on September 05, 2021, 08:41:56 PM
Sounds like my Blue DEF pump for my Ram diesel. New pump assembly cost $1600 no core charge. I took mine apart to see how it worked. You have to destroy the housing to get access to component parts. It has a heater blanket, small pump with filter, level guage, temperature probe, DEF doser and electrical connectors. All these could be replaceable if it was designed to be refurbished but trsh now. Couldn't find anything wrong with it but the engine light went out. $1600 for a light extinguisher, sheesh.
It looks like diesels are gonna continue to be punished.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on September 06, 2021, 01:21:27 PM
There's a similar thing on my 09 MINI, the coolant temp sensor is part of the thermostat assembly - I say assembly because it's this large conglomerate resembling a human heart - it actually has two thermostats, electronically controlled by the ECU. The engine normally runs at 225* (!) but if you turn the A/C on max, it opens a secondary t-stat and drops the temp down to 185*, it also does this if the ambient and intake temps go over a certain amount, or if you're driving more than 75 mph on the highway (on a hot day).

So, when this little temp sensor fails - which is removable from the t-stat unit - you can't buy it from MINI, you have to buy the entire assembly to get one. The only good news is that you can buy the sensor from aftermarket sources.

It should be a 5 minute job to change it but you have to remove a bunch of hoses and pipes to get to it first, then it's a matter of unclip it and clip the new one in......you can see the sensor in the top of the t-stat assembly.

So far this is the only thing I've had to do to our Audi tho it is due for an oil change - based on time, not mileage obviously - as we've only done 3K miles since we bought it last August.

Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: jeff10049 on September 27, 2021, 10:29:35 PM
funny you say that I did this a while back to the wifes 13 mini countryman and thought it looked like I ripped the heart out of something. It cracked and was leaking thinking I should have saved the sensor out of it now but I tossed the whole thing.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on December 29, 2023, 11:49:01 AM
I haven't had to do a damn thing to our Audi since this last post except we got a low tire warning - damn that warning chime is loud and scary! I did the oil change at 73K in Oct of '22 and it now has all of 76K on it, hasn't seemed to lose a drop, but as this one only has the electronic gauge and no dipstick, you have to take their word for it.

I aired up the tire and about a month later it screamed again, so I took it to the tire shop. They found nothing wrong so we carried on and almost exactly a month later it went off again! Back to the tire store, this time the shop foreman took the wheel off, dismounted the tire, still couldn't find anything, put it back on and decided it was leaking from a previous repair, so he took that plug out and put in a new one - one with a patch on the inside. So with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset yet again and like clockwork 30 days later we got the warning again.

So I took it to another tire store who immediately found air bubbles coming out of the wheel itself. New wheels for this car are in the $900 range so I scoured the interwebz for a used one and found one in Denver for about $175 shipped. It was a little more curb rashed than they said but really clean so I had the old tire installed and it seemed to fix the problem but - I noticed the tars were getting down to the wear bars, so today I had 4 new Conti DWS+ put on.

When I looked at the old wheel I found a little paint blister on the inside - I think my welder buddy could have fixed this for $20 and 10 min of his time, but SWMBO would never have felt "safe" on it (but a used wheel from a junkyard is somehow OK?) so I went ahead with it.

It's amazing how smooth new tires feel, however going from the 17's on our old car to these 18's adds about $50 a tire!

Next Tues I'll have the alignment checked before we head out on the 10th to North Carolina. That will give us enough time to make sure everything is copacetic. We're driving about 250 miles tomorrow to go to a friend's Bday party, that will let me sort out if they got them balanced too.



Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: cstudep on December 29, 2023, 04:26:48 PM
I feel your pain on tires, I priced new one's for my 3/4 ton truck. 20" A/T E to F load range will just about give you a stroke.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on December 29, 2023, 09:08:06 PM
Yes, I'm used to buying 10's and 13's!   :grin:
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on December 30, 2023, 11:49:27 PM
Well, we did about a 300 mile drive yesterday on the new tires and a couple of notable things - they got the balance spot on.....mind you I didn't drive over 80 but anything below that was smooth as can be. Also not only are these about the quietest tires I've ever driven, they also are quite a bit smoother than the Falkens we took off.

All in all I give them 3 snaps up in a circle!

Continental DWS+ in case I didn't say it before.

Now I'm seriously considering changing out the tires on my MINI, which are a long ways from being worn out but so noisy I was ready to buy new ones the day I got home from Indy. 8 hours of that noise about drove me nuts. They're also not very good on wet roads......
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: BruceK on January 05, 2024, 07:24:09 PM
Quote from: MiniDave on December 30, 2023, 11:49:27 PMNow I'm seriously considering changing out the tires on my MINI, which are a long ways from being worn out but so noisy I was ready to buy new ones the day I got home from Indy. 8 hours of that noise about drove me nuts. They're also not very good on wet roads......

I put new tires on my R53 MINI a few months back. I only put about 4K miles on that car each year these days, so I decided to go with a no-name tire from Discount Tire rather than spending big bucks on a name brand tire only to have them age out before they wear out.  So, I went with a set of Discount Tire in-house brand Road Hugger tires which are made by Kumho and Nitto.  I like them, and I have no complaints.  They grip well in the dry and also in the wet.  The ride and handling are fine too.
Title: Re: Audi Allroad
Post by: MiniDave on March 21, 2024, 01:42:25 PM
Speaking of Allroads......when we bought our current car it was right after the pandemic set in hard - 1st of July 2020 and we had been casually looking to replace our 2004 A6 Allroad when the bride stumbled onto this car which we decided was a pretty good deal so we went down and just bought it outright. It has been a perfect car so far, no issues at all and so far I've put tires on it and changed the oil - once. We bought it with 69K on it and it now has 79K - 4 years later!

I frequent BaT and have been considering replacing my 2009 MINI Clubman and saw a really nice low mile 2013 Clubby on there and bid on it, but it went for way more $$$$ than I expected (typical BaT) and way more than I felt it was worth - $20K!   https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2013-mini-cooper-clubman-jcw/

2 weeks later I spot a really nice low mile 2015 (47k) A4 Allroad, the twin to our car but white exterior instead of black and a year newer.....I watched the auction all week and the price was staying low so I decided to see where the money might wind up.....however I was out of town on the final day of the auction so I set the bride up with my laptop opened to the BaT page.

I forgot about it till it was just about to close and hurriedly looked at it on my phone - I texted the bride and asked if she was bidding and she said she was waiting for the price to go up more (?????) I said bid, right now! She attempted to bid but the site said our CC info was no good and I couldn't get it corrected in the last 1 min of the bidding. It went for a price we would have happily paid as it was a really nice 2 owner car.......when I got home I looked at my settings and for some reason it had a really old CC in my info - which is very strange as it accepted my bids on the Clubby 2 weeks before.

Bottom line, I think we missed out on a rare thing, a good deal on BaT!   https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2015-audi-allroad-3/

We've been looking online since and haven't found anything even close to what we might have been able to buy that one for, of course had we entered the bidding the other guy might have gone way higher than what we would have spent....no way to know for sure where it might have wound up.