Tough Luck

thanks Bruce. She has 7,100 miles. Seems to be a popular mileage range for this issue.

rktskicar

Tough Luck- It looks like to me most failures centered around 10000 miles.

Bruce

S4B8

I failed 1st at 6100 and 2nd at 18,900 miles.

Aaron

BLACK10-S4P

just had mine replaced at 4800 miles.

Tough Luck

So I dropped off the car at the dealer today (actually the flatbed did). Service guy said they are seeing water pumps fail not only on S4's, but also Q5's, A6's and some others. He said Audi will only let him order 5 water pumps at a time and that is not enough to keep up. As of today, they don't have any in stock, so my car might be there for a little while.

He sounded very frustrated and said he was losing money on the pump replacements because of the delays, as a result he would have to provide people with loaners/rentals for a week or more, instead of the usual day or two. My sense was (he didn't say this), that he seemed to think a recall could happen soon (sounds like the problem really took off a months or so ago).

Well they were out of loaners today so they hook me up with a local rental car agency.

The women at the rental car agency says they have been getting a ton of business from Audi, largely related to the water pump issue. She says it started picking up about a month ago and that she estimates Audi has sent her 50-60 customers over the last month (her estimate, I don't have anyway to confirm) mostly all for the water pump issue. She also said that it involved a few different models, with many of them having been recent Q5 purchases.

Because of the pick-up in Audi business, combined with normal holiday business, the rental car place only had large SUVs left. I was happy to take a Tahoe with only 15k miles on it. (the elderly women next to me wasn't as happy with the selection).

( for anyone who is reading this and is thinking about getting an S4 or another audi and is worried about this issue, please understand that I would do so again in a heartbeat despite the recent problem. I love the car and the service reps at my dealer are exceptional.)

gsxtos4guy

Update,
Dealer came through, fixed the car in half day. The service more than made up for the initial pains. Not only did thy drop of a loaner car on Monday for me. They also delivered the car to my house after it was fixed. This great beause I work in jersey city, dealer is in princenton, my home is 40 mins away from the dealer. For me arranging the pickup at the dealer would have been a real pain. I am happy with the level of attention provided by the dealer.