More cleaning

With the weather unseasonable warm today there was a great opportunity to back the Silver S4 into the driveway and wash it off.  I had the trickle charger running all night long but it still hadn’t reached the 80% charged point so I was a little worried about getting the car back into the garage after cleaning it off.  It started up pretty easily with the charger still attached and after backing it out of the garage there were no signs of oil dripping.  I did make sure and back it up far enough that if I had to pull the Miata alongside of it to jump start I’d be able to.

The passenger side wheel I’d managed to get off after whacking the inside of the tire with a 2×6.  I put one of my SSR comps on that corner.  I tried the same thing with the driver’s side but to no avail, the wheel would not budge.  The next step will be driving the car (slowly) with the lug bolts loosened and try to get the wheel to break loose.

Here’s the car after washing.  Both tabs on the passenger side headlight were broken so I just took the headlight out.  I also put my old air filter, which looked newer than the one in the Silver S4, into the car and also used the bottom half of my airbox which has the Darintake mod done to it.  Since I had the airbox out I cleaned up the ICM’s and used some dielectric grease on the mounting plate.  I also disassembled the MAF and used MAF cleaner on the sensor.

Silver S4 front end washed

Silver S4 passenger side

Silver S4 driver's side

Getting to work

After getting the S4 back I decided to leave it on the trailer overnight.  There were a few things I wanted to check out on it as well as trying to get the tire inflated.  Getting the car off the trailer was likely to take some time so decided that it could wait until morning.

In the morning I was relieved to find that my air pump was filling the passenger side tire and there did not sound like any major leaks in the tire.  This would make taking the car off the trailer easier.  I also topped off the coolant reservoir and added a little more oil.  Then the trailer was tilted up and the car rolled off without needing to be turned on.

Audi S4 off of trailer

After another successful jump start I relocated the Silver S4 to the garage and began with the first order of business, removing all of the markings that the auction site had applied to the windows and the New York City Police Department sticker from the front windshield.

Silver S4 in garage

After cleaning the windows I went into the interior to vacuum up the dirt and wipe down the surfaces.  To my surprise I found this in the glove box:

Audi S4 lock clylinder

As of this writing I am puzzled by how the car ended up at the auction site.  The paperwork that accompanied the title shows that when Geico ran a repair estimate for the damage to the car the total was about $1000, and the owner had a $500 deductible, leaving Geico with a repair bill of $500.  The lock cylinder was a newly purchased item keyed for this car, puzzling.

Picking up the new S4

After failing to get anywhere with finding a transport company to pick up the Silver S4, (some additional background on this AgS4 here) I decided to take it upon myself to go and get the car and bring it back.  The auction site was going to start charging a daily storage fee if the car was not removed from the site so I had some additional incentive to get moving.

I rented a Budget truck along with a trailer and set out to the auction site to get the car.  After providing the dealer number to the staff at the auction site they gave me the title to the car and said they’d bring the car around to me.  I went to prep the trailer and a short while later a payloader came out of the yard and dumped the car in a rather undignified manner beside the trailer.  I was a bit aghast at the car being carried out via a forklift, but given the condition of the majority of the cars at the site it was easy to understand why they would move the cars with that equipment.

The pictures provided by the auction service were not thorough enough to illustrate all of the ‘issues’ the car had, the first concern was that the front passenger tire was flat, and I had not thought to bring an air pump.  No problem, I can just put the spare on.  The lugs bolts were seized and it took a swift kick to the Audi lug bolt removal tool to break the lug bolts free.  After all the lug bolts were removed to my surprise the wheel wouldn’t budget.  I usually have my wheels coming off and going on so frequently that once the bolts are loosened the wheel practically falls off, not this one.  A few swift kicks to the tire failed to cause it to budge.  After some more kicks it was becoming clearer that the wheel was not going to be coming off.  The tire was in pretty rough shape as it was, in fact the rear passenger tire had a bubble on the side wall, so I decided that I’d drive it as it was up onto the trailer seeing as how it was only going forward about a car length and a half.

S4 at Auction Site

The auction site had said the car started with a jump.  At the first jump attempt the motor barely turned over.  Luckily I’d thought to bring a winch for just such an occurrence, but I sure didn’t want to pull the car up onto the trailer if I didn’t need to.  I gave it another try and the motor weakly turned over, but to my joy the engine caught and it began to run.  Up onto the trailer it went.

S4 at Auction Site on Trailer

With the car in place I set off to bring it home.

S4 at rest stop

S4 at Rest Stop

About eleven hours later I had the car back at my residence.

Audi B5 S4 Information and Testing