Category: The Allroad

2024 State of the Allroad – Reliability

Fall is in the air despite what the temperatures will tell you. 77 some-odd degrees currently, and it’s supposed to stay in the 70s for at least the next week. But yes, we’re rounding out September 2024 in style, and so goes with it car culture, car meets, and the racecar life.

Figured this would be as good a time as any to kind of summarize where we’re at with the Allroad. Mileage, repairs, reliability thus far into my ownership, modifications and upgrades, etc. This post will be Part 1 of all of this, focusing on the car’s reliability and any repairs its required.

The important bits

Right now the car has around 86,000 miles and some change. I’m actually anxiously awaiting 86,600 because that’s when I can tick a bunch of regular maintenance stuff off my list. Oil and filter change, preventative PCV replacement, spark plug change, and a conversion to the coil pack studs. But in any case, that is about 45,000 miles driven under my ownership, and a little over four years.

Over the course of the years and miles, there have been several issues I’ve experienced; some of them worse than others. Here’s the details:

All-wheel drive clutch assembly

11/2022 @ 67098 miles – $3510 total, covered by warranty

This is part of the drivetrain that sits between the transmission and the rear differential. Specifically it allows the rear wheels to become unpowered while cruising, and is known as Quattro Ultra. The B9 Allroad was the first to be sold in America with this system, but as far as I know it has been rolled out to the rest of the B9 generation of A4, A5, and Q5 since. It does this clearly in the name of fuel efficiency at the cost of reliability and points of failure – and probably performance as well.

In my case, it started with a mild thumping from the rear end when taking off from a start, and would even out once cruising. It progressively got worse, and began doing the same thing when turning left or right, violently so in some cases. My initial suspicions were the rear differential, or the driveshaft’s main carrier bearing. Upon taking it to the dealership (since I have that awesome extended warranty) they recommended a fluid flush per TSB 2059057/1, but there is an updated revision of the TSB linked here. They performed the flush several times to no avail, and ended up replacing the whole assembly. Part number, for everyone’s reference, was 0CJ409431E.

Thermostat housing

01/2023 @ 68951 miles – $1555 total, covered by warranty

This one is a common point of failure I’ve seen in other cars at this mileage. Specifically my concerns started in April of 2022, being that the coolant levels were low in the recovery tank. In these cars, the cooling system is a closed loop – there should be nothing entering or leaving it. I topped it up and went on my way, but always kept it in the back of my mind. It took about nine months later for the issue to reappear, and at that point I booked another appointment with the dealership.

They confirmed the leak was originating from the thermostat housing. I know in other cars this housing is plastic, which makes zero sense from a common sense standpoint. Across many heat cycles of heating and cooling, it cracks and begins to leak. Again they replaced under warranty and the issue has not presented itself again. The part number for this replacement was 06L121111P.

Coil pack failure

05/2023 @ 72540 miles – $520 total, partially covered by warranty

I just found myself recounting the story of this failure on my trip to Texas in 2023, but decided to save the full story for another post. The basics are that I was in the mountains of Tennessee and the car began bucking and stumbling when accelerating beyond 60%-70% throttle. I feared a transmission failure at the time, but upon scanning with VCDS, determined misfires on only Cylinder 4. I cleared any codes and the car went back to performing as it had the previous two days of driving – presumably the car detecting misfires disabled the cylinder in its entirety.

After getting back to reliable cell reception, I was reached out to the first Euro shop that showed up in my Googling, and that was Kadunza in Knoxville. Miraculously they got me in that day, ordered replacement coil packs before I was even there, and got me squared away in a matter of hours.

While I replaced all four coil packs, my warranty only covered the one that failed. It makes sense from a warranty perspective since only one failed, but if one did, the others were likely soon to follow. We didn’t end up replacing the spark plugs since I had actually just replaced them about six months prior.

Driver’s side door touch sensor

01/2024 @ 82053 miles – $Not sure, covered by warranty

The car developed an issue where the exterior door handle would not cause the doors to lock or unlock when touched. Again, the dealership determined the cause – corroded wiring inside the handle itself. They removed the corroded wiring, spliced in a new connector, and we were back in business. The exact cost was not explicitly stated in the work order so I can’t say for sure how much it was.

Sunroof leak

02/2024 @ 82275 miles – $Not sure, covered by warranty

At some point I noticed the headliner behind the passenger-side sun visor was damp to the touch. This progressed over the colder winter months for a month or two before I finally decided to book an appointment again with the dealership to investigate.

After dropping it off, they notified me that they could not reproduce my concerns. No leaks could be found, no dampness, despite all their attempts to do so. I asked if dropping the headliner to get a better look would be an option, and if the warranty would cover all this work. They stated that they could drop the headliner, but I would have to pay out of pocket to the tune of $1200, and there was no guarantee the warranty would cover it. I knew water was making its was inside the car, and I knew it had to be coming from the sunroof. I took the gamble and said go ahead, do it.

They did the work, removed the headliner, and once again, they could not find any leaks.

I was simply floored. Impossible. At this point I was frustrated and annoyed that a seemingly obvious issue was not easily found. I asked them if it was possible for me to take the car with the headliner removed, and wait for the issue to happen again while it was in my possession. They offered to tack the headliner inside for me so I could easily remove it at home, and they would only charge me half the labor – the cost of removing it. Offer accepted.

It only took about a week and a half and one trip to the car wash before my girlfriend Rachel and I were getting dripped on by water seeping in through the bare sunroof’s frame. I took at least 20 photos and several videos of what it was doing to offer the dealership as proof of my concern. They got me in that exact same day, and put me up in a loaner till replacement parts arrived from Germany, and the issue has been fixed since.

The dealership, through my warranty, did refund the initial ~$600 from the headliner removal, and covered the remainder of the work. I don’t have a solid number for cost, but I’d wager it was in the $3,000 to $4,000 range in total.

So there you have it

The extended warranty has paid for itself twice over at this point. I think it is safe to say that for any German vehicle, if there is an offer for an extended warranty – TAKE IT. These cars are expensive to purchase and are, without question, expensive to repair when something fails.

In retrospect, knowing then what I know now, would I still have bought the Allroad? Absolutely. It’s been an amazing daily driver and one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. Without the warranty and paying out of pocket, I might feel differently though. Nearly every repair above seriously impacted the usability of the car.

The all-wheel drive clutch assembly affected the car’s drivability at a minimum, but also could have potentially caused components to wear out faster and fail sooner than they should have.

Losing coolant could have eventually caused the engine to overheat and fail.

The coil pack made the car essentially undrivable.

And the sunroof leaking could have caused any number of issues attributed to moisture getting into the car’s electronics and modules.

But I guess, on the flip side of that coin, before I pulled the trigger on this car, I was prepared for the additional costs beyond its purchase price, warranty included or not. These are over-engineered German cars afterall, and you really, truly, have to pay to play. They aren’t cheap, but for everything you get, they are worth that additional cost in my opinion.

And besides, what other modern Audi wagon could I have bought that wasn’t six digits? 😀

-AB

You bought a station wagon? What are you, 1000 years old?

No, actually I was 36, err I should say what, like 32 when I bought my first one? It was a 2006 Audi A4 Avant, but I’ll be honest, something about that car just clicked with me. The practicality of an SUV, the handling of a sedan. But the biggest draw – being different. America is notoriously anti-station wagon. In 2019, station wagons represented a sum total of 1.4% of all new car sales. SUVs for that same year? 50% even. And for me, 50% is way too common. 25% is too common. Hell, even 5% is too common for my tastes.

I want to drive something unique. Something that I’ll see maybe once every two weeks in passing. Or something I’ll see one or twice a year in passing. You know what I’m talking about too – something that ends up with a nod or a wave, that recognition between drivers that yeah, we’re driving something special.

That 2006 Avant I mentioned earlier was a true unicorn. 3.2-liter V6 motor, 6-speed manual transmission, all-wheel drive, S-Line trim. It was one of those cars where there were barely triple digits of them sold during its production run in the US. It had a quarter million miles on it, but that car, with a new set of snow tires, was an absolute tank in the snow. At the time I had never, and have not felt since, the confidence in the snow that I felt in that car. Low end torque, a six-speed transmission, the Quattro all-wheel drive system, and those tires – it was unbeatable. I was hooked.

So when it came time to address the fact that my reliable daily driver wasn’t as reliable as I wanted, it was time to move on. But I knew I had to get another wagon…

Allroads lead to home

Carvana is just bad news for an automotively obsessed computer nerd. Buy a car online, sight unseen? Brilliant. I wanted a newer car, one that I could get a warranty on. One that hadn’t been eclipsed by the next generation yet. And it had to be a wagon. Oh, and it had to have those four rings on the hood. So what options did I have? The only option was Audi’s B9 generation A4 Allroad. And in all honesty, it was not a bad option, not in the least.

Okay. Maybe it was a bit taller than I would have preferred. After all, Audi’s B8 generation was the last one to have a true A4 Avant, a true wagon version of the sedan. The Allroad is meant to be closer to crossover than a regular old wagon. Taller, more muscular, with some matte-painted fender extensions to give it that “offroad” feel. Audi had their crosshairs on the Subaru Forester probably. In any case, I knew lowering was always a possibility, so there wasn’t much to dissuade me from pulling the trigger.

I can’t say for sure how long I truly looked for an Allroad to call mine, but it probably wasn’t as long as it should have been. You know, millennial instant gratification mentality and all. But I found this one on Carvana, and started the ball rolling.

All in all the process was very straight forward and simple. Paperwork to fill out and send back and forth, and the wait for the car to arrive.

And that kids, is how your father met his new daily driver

Since that fateful day in 2019 I was hooked on wagoons, but didn’t know it truly till the Allroad was mine. I am its second owner, the first being a lessee. They put a total of 41641 miles on it during their ownership, and I’ve since doubled that and then some. My last record as of today is 86078 miles. We’ve been to Nebraska and Texas and all the states in between. I’ve invested, if you can call it that, over 50% of what I paid for it, back into it in the form of modifications and upgrades. The car has only ever threatened to strand me once, in the mountains of Tennessee, but we made it through.

So consider this an introduction to the Allroad. I hope to further document the places it’s taken me and the fun I’ve had customizing, modifying, and upgrading. After all, it can’t be just like every other Allroad out there right?

-AB