It’s not all too often in DIY wrenching that something requiring very little effort makes a big impact, which is why I’m so thrilled with the transformation of my beloved 2002 Audi S4.
I picked up my example of this iconic late-’90s/early-’00s German sports sedan at the end of 2022. Just $925 plus fees from Copart put my name on its pink slip. Previously, I wrote about some of its lovable/hate-able foibles at The Drive; long story short, there have been plenty of signs indicating deferred maintenance before it got to my driveway. Plus, the fact that its twin-turbo V6 is crammed between its narrow, compact car frame rails makes any degree of wrenching a bit more complex than other cars. It’s been a heck of journey nursing it back to health—or keeping it barely alive, depends on how you look at it.
Which is why I was over the moon when these three recent, simple fixes paid off so well. Here’s how spacing out its wheels, installing an aftermarket front sway bar, and fixing a boost leak made my S4 look, handle, and perform better than ever.
How It Should’ve Come From the Factory, In My Opinion
Alright, maybe this doesn’t necessarily classify as a fix, but it sure did make a big aesthetic impact: Installing 10mm H&R wheel spacers.
Cars often show up on the dealer floor with wheels deep in their arches. But it doesn’t look as good, and I didn’t realize how much of a visual difference it’d make until I did it.
Throwing on wheel spacers is a very easy modification to perform. In fact, I like to think of it more as a mild alteration than a modification. Step one: Acquire spacers from a reputable brand. H&R’s are legal in the eyes of Germany’s ultra-strict vehicle parts legislation—known as TÜV—so they’re good enough for me. Step two: Acquire longer wheel bolts. Step three: Safely jack up and support the car and install at each corner, and it’s a good idea to very lightly coat each spacer with anti-seize along the way. Done!
Even at stock ride height, my very factory S4 looks so much better. Its OEM 17-inch Avus wheels are more prominently displayed and line up better with its sleek sedan shape. Though, there are also downsides to keep in mind, such as the tires throwing more dirt and debris onto the fenders, doors, and rear bumper. Then, moving each tire closer to the inside of its respective fender could result in rubbing and potentially tire damage, so it’s important to make sure there’s ample range of motion. My car isn’t lowered and I haven’t experienced any rubbing across all degrees of suspension movement since installing them, so I’m in the clear.
[Ed Note: Here’s suspension-engineer Huibert Mees’ take on wheel spacers (it applies to lower-offset wheels, as well). There are some significant drawbacks worth noting. -DT]
Cleaning Up Its Handling In the Twisties
Next up, I installed an H&R front sway bar on my very front-heavy little Audi. And boy, do I mean heavy; to accommodate the massive Quattro all-wheel drive system, the S4’s entire engine sits ahead of the shock towers. This doesn’t bode well for overall handling—usually, the farther an engine sits behind the shock towers, the better.
Installation was almost as easy as installing the wheel spacers: Safely jack up and support the front end with jack stands, unbolt the old bar and brackets, install new bar and brackets … done!
Sway bars help reign in body roll under cornering, and this did exactly that. A more substantial improvement in this department often comes from installing a rear sway bar on this chassis, but this made a very nice difference, too. On stock springs before the bigger bar, the front end felt vague and downright sloppy on twisty roads. Now, it feels a lot more taut and confident, and steering weight loads up a tad more in corners. I haven’t noticed an increase in understeer, either. As far as downsides go, well, I have yet to find any. Bumps are more pronounced through the steering wheel, but not to any annoying degree.
Chasing Boost Leaks
Ask any B5 S4 owner, any real B5 S4 owner: It doesn’t matter if your car has 50,000 or 200,000 miles, boost leaks are boost leaks.
After fixing some light boost leaks over a year ago, throwing in fresh spark plugs and coil packs, remedying boost solenoid-related codes, and installing a new mass airflow sensor, I started to feel a general loss of power, plus some stumbling under wide-open throttle. One day while out running errands, the potential cause revealed itself quite prominently: the unmistakable sound of compressed air escaping from boost piping while driving alongside parked cars.
I’ve had to reinstall and tighten the connection between the right-bank turbo and right-bank intercooler before, but that wasn’t the issue this time. After popping the hood, thankfully, the issue was easy to find: The OEM throttle body boot finally tore. It happens to every B5, I’m surprised that it took this long for mine to die.
As luck would have it, a beautiful Imola Yellow B5 S4 was sitting in a local junkyard 30-or-so miles from me down in Orange County, so I headed out to see if I could pull anything useful off of it. The luck continued: I grabbed its sturdier-than-stock aftermarket Samco throttle body boot, plus better-condition bi-pipes—those are the two pipes connecting the intercoolers to the throttle body. Plus, all the clamps holding it all together, as they seemed to be in better shape than mine.
Upon returning home, I swapped it all in and went for a test drive. The mighty twin-turbo 2.7-liter V6 not only ceased stumbling with my foot to the floor, it felt stronger than ever. In fact, stronger than I thought it would. I’m wondering if my old clamps were possibly a little weak and letting a teeny amount of boost pressure out, though I had previously tested it for leaks and everything looked good. Regardless, I was over the moon.
Despite having a turbo on each cylinder bank, the US-spec B5 S4 only makes around 250 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque from the factory. That’s not nothing, especially for its era, but these things are a bit heavy at 3,600 pounds. Mine’s also a five-speed automatic, so it’s not the quickest-shifting box out there. Yet, I clicked off a 0-60 mph run in just over five seconds while merging onto the highway, which seems awfully healthy for an auto with deferred maintenance and 135,000 miles on the clock.
Maybe it’s a testament to my attentive restoration, but I think it may have more to do with its tuning; there might be a tune on its ECU that ups the boost pressure a tad. One way to find out is installing a boost gauge, which I plan to do very soon.
But Can I Rest on My Laurels?
The days following all of this were such a treat: My dear rescue Audi was not only more powerful than ever during my ownership, but also looking and handling great to boot. While I’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort on the ol’ steed—more than simply buying one used from a fellow enthusiast like a normal person—I’m proud to have put it back on the road. Thing’s helped me become a more confident and capable wrench.
However, a new issue cropped up about two weeks later: Its light tick upon startup turned into a constant tick. Boy, the fun never stops with this thing. Listening closely with the hood open, I could tell it was driver-side valvetrain related, and not the injectors or a cashed rod bearing. I attempted to remedy it with an engine flush, followed by fresh oil and a Liqui Moly hydraulic lifter additive, but to no avail. Pulling the valve cover instantly revealed the issue: Several caved-in lifters, though every camshaft lobe thankfully looked to be in good shape. I guess that’s what happens when deferred maintenance meets frequent peak boost.
I’ve ordered new lifters and other miscellaneous parts, and just have to find the time to accomplish this lengthy job. It’s a great learning experience, I’ll just keep telling myself.
What are some quick fixes that transformed your car, and that you perhaps wish you’d done sooner?
Reading the owner’s manual on a 2015 Mustang. Turns out you can open the trunk from the outside of the car without the clicker….
Easiest fix I ever did to make my car better was to replace the battery. It was nice having a running car again.
I bought a VW Polo which jolted around like it was on a cobbled street below ~20mph (I didn’t notice when I bought it because it was on a cobbled street).
I took it to a tire shop and got the wheels balanced and aligned, and it drove like a dream after that.
BMW I6 engines up to M54 engines, replace stock water pumps with Stewart EMP water pumps, and plastic thermostat housing (if applicable with aluminium ones).. Also check the pH of your coolant, since it is a buffer solution, once it ages it shoots up, it will age your plastic hoses and housing much quicker.
Basic maintenance like sending oil samples to Blackstone and adjust your driving and oil change intervals based on concrete data.
Metal replacement advice also applies to later gen ZF gearboxes with plastic pans. You will need to make minor trims and cuts to the underpan but I think it is worth it.
When you drive a 30 year old BMW with 255k miles, there are no easy fixes. The last thing I did to mine was replacing the transmission because 3rd gear was grinding constantly… that was about as easy of a fix as I get with these cars.
Things that currently need doing: headlights are cracked, auxiliary fan isn’t working right, both front seats need replacing, the dashboard is warped and cracked and needs replacing, brake pads/rotors need replacing all around, whole suspension needs to be overhauled, driveshaft needs to be rebuilt, sunroof mechanism needs to be rebuilt, and the whole car needs a repaint really badly.
I love a life-altering 5-minute fix.
NA Miata: One day I reached into the footwell, grabbed the gas pedal, and yanked it real hard toward the brake pedal. It bent the pedal arm a smidge and located the two pedals about 0.5″ closer together than stock. Instant heel-toe ergonomic perfection.
Nissan Altima: Unclipped the plastic piece behind the rear seats’ fold-down center armrest, removed the near-cardboard material behind that, and unzipped the back-of-seat upholstery a little bit. Voila: instant ski passthrough, and completely hideable in the summer.
Saab 9-5 sedan: Pulling the DRL fuse. 1st gen Saab 9-5s don’t actually have DRLs; they just keep the headlights and interior dash lights always-on, even when the headlight switch is in the Off position. This means that by the time the car reaches its 4th owner (me), all the dashboard backlights have burnt out and left the car in permanent Night Panel mode. Pulling the dedicated DRL fuse returns control of the headlights to *gasp* the headlight switch.
PS great seeing you here on the weekends, Peter.
Had a Hibiscus Red 2000 S4. Loved that car… and that color…
Changing out the stock drum front brakes on my ’64 F100 coach-built crewcab for disk brakes. Made stopping a real thing instead of a maybe thing.
On my two most recent cars, upgrading to MIB2 with CarPlay on my 2015 GTI was a nice upgrade, as it gives me that feature with a 6-speed and 2-doors, the way God intended the GTI. My next most recent car, the 2009 Pontiac G8, upgrading to CTS-V Brembos was a nice touch. It required some creative parts mixing and matching to retain parking brake functionality, but Brembos and Brembos and with the V logo and in a GM Replacement Parts box they were significantly cheaper.
Speaking of CarPlay, there are aftermarket head units from China for volume cars like ’10 Prius for a cheap / reasonable price. Get ones that are middling in performance, don’t waste money on the cheapest possible / lowest spec ones.
With the integrations into the rest of the car, and the requirement to retain SiriusXM, I went with OEM parts. I got a head unit out of an Atlas from a local salvage yard, a USB cable from a local aftermarket parts vendor, trim that matched the rest of my dash from and the largest possible display that would fit in my dash from eBay, and that display, out of a Crafter van, from another salvage yard in the U.K.
One the things I like about Volkswagens is the ability to mix and match parts from various regions to come up with solutions like this.
Peter Nelson is on the Autopian, hooray!!! If you’ve been here for a minute I missed it, but had been missing you on the drive, which is also part of why I haven’t been over there as much lately. David and Torch, if y’all could just pick up Chris Rosales and Victoria Scott from Motor1 you’ll have collected 95% of my fav auto journalists in one place!!!
Thanks!
Taking an hour or more to get all the windows ( and mirrors ) clean inside & out squeaky-clean considerably improves my disposition toward a vehicle. Likewise,
having the windshield replaced on a 20+ yo Mercedes with moon-mileage made a dramatic difference
I am embarrassed to admit how long I put off the two best quality of life jobs on my 78 BMW motorcycle. Turning up the idle screws solved the stalling at traffic lights, and putting a thicker washer under the right side mirror fixed the loose pivot. I still kick myself for not buying Napoleon bar end mirrors 20 years ago, but I needed electronic ignition more
“Several caved-in lifters, though every camshaft lobe thankfully looked to be in good shape. I guess that’s what happens when deferred maintenance meets frequent peak boost.”
How would frequent peak boost cause that?
Doing this now – replacing factory “made of KY” P-zeros with Michelin PS4S’… what a difference!
Changing the rear diff ratio on my Z4 was a game changer. 3.64 vs 3.07. It went from grunty Autobahn cruiser to mountain road weapon in a single afternoon.
Fixing the shifter pop-out on my RSX Type-S. The Honda and Redline oil that the dorks on Acura forums recommend doesn’t work. All it took was replacing it with AC Delco Friction Modified Syncromesh fluid to immediately fix the problem. If you want to improve the feel, I highly recommend the shifter bushings and springs from Hybrid Racing too. Also, 225 width tires and a 23mm rear sway bar means it always goes where it’s pointed.
Toyota GR86: $2 2″ round wood shift knob (I’ve done this on most cars I’ve owned going back over 25 years and I haven’t found anything I like better—ergonomics are perfect for me, super lightweight, great shift feel if you don’t like isolation, and appearance), changing out the clutch spring (stock is terribly inconsistent), real tires (not Primacys that came on it). Honorable mention: building a felt-lined cassette slot for the cellphone.
’90 FWD Subaru Legacy wagon: knockoff Momo steering wheel (steering feel I’ve yet to meet the match of), pedal covers (easier heel-toe), decent wheels and tires. I did other things, but those were small improvements while the three listed were absolutely transformative from a boring car I didn’t really want all that much to my favorite car of all time.
’83 Subaru GL sedan: same as above minus the pedal covers, adding an air dam.
’84 Subaru GL wagon: animal noise PA system, crosshairs on hood, teeth in grille. Girls loved this thing in HS.
The rest didn’t inspire me to do much as there wasn’t anything that could be easily remedied or, in the case of the 260Z, I was too busy chasing electrical and vacuum line issues.
My uncle told me when I got my first car that he’d at one point drilled out a golf ball and used it as a shift knob. Mine was a cracked piece of garbage so I gave it a shot. I found it to be the perfect size and grip, and stay pretty comfortable to bare hands in extreme temps.
Yeah, that’s about the same size, a little smaller, I think, but pretty close. The dents are probably pretty nice to have.
Replacing the crushed drivers side mirror. I was quoted $900 by the shop, so I figured it was way above my skills. Drove with a deeply compromised mirror for almost two bloody years. It took a $70 part, $13 Torx driver, an hour, and a half dozen swear words. Piece of cake
I clipped my passenger side mirror and shattered the glass. The dealer wanted to replace the entire unit (housing and motor) for several hundred dollars. I found a piece of replacement glass online for less than $10 and it popped right in.
In order:
2003 Seville STS: Putting a Corsa exhaust on it. There was an extremely limited amount of things you can do with post-2000 Northstar Cadillacs and I did just about all of them; but this one was still the biggest single change.
1994 Corvette: Putting the 4 piston Brembo calipers from the ATS on the front. I had already done the brake bias spring thing to send more braking to the rear, but this change had an even more dramatic affect than that did since the actual braking force was increasing. Even my original Z07 brakes derived from the ZR-1 ones really weren’t enough for the amount of tire you could easily put under a C4 Corvette (I ran 315/35-17s on each corner for years before switching to 295/35-18s and the brakes could easily be overwhelmed).
2016 ATS Coupe V6 AWD: Getting rid of the extremely heavy and narrow chrome wheels for some nice, lightweight Konig Ampliforms. Completely transformed the steering response and chassis feel; and even improved fuel mileage despite running fairly aggressive summer tires.
2003 911 Carrera 2: Pulling the resonator off of the factory airbox and replacing it with a straight tube. The increase in inside midrange-and-up noise was immense without making the car particularly louder outside.
2005 Lotus Elise: Adjusting the pedals to the “alternate” position described in the owner’s manual that lets you heel-toe instead of the awful original position where the throttle pedal was higher up than the brake pedal. Not only does exactly what the driver manual said it would, but it also freed up some space in the pedal box which is extremely at a premium.
Liked especially for the Elise pedal mod..
I’d guess the company lawyers were involved with the original pedal config., as a way to help prevent “accidental pedal application”
Not long after I got my SN95 (New Edge) Mustang, I swapped out the stock exhaust for the FRPP catback.
Best thing I ever did – the factory exhaust was way too quiet, but the usual aftermarket stuff was way too loud. Ford’s own system hit the sweet spot – brought out the V8 rumble without being jerky to everyone else.
S197s and later sound properly Mustang from the factory, but mine needed just a little help to get there.
My girlfriend’s well-loved 2008 Focus was a bit of a basket case to drive, until I replaced its onion-skin-thick Uniroyal Tiger Paw “all season” tires with first proper winter tires and then a set of Cooper CS-5s for the summer. It transformed how that car drove and handled!
My 2010 Focus came with these rock hard Kumhos from the factory – I’m assume b/c of everyone dumping their gianto-SUVs for smaller, “economy” rides after 2008.
I replaced them with a set of Dunlops, and currently Firestone Firehawks, and absolutely that good tires make a world of different on these cars.
Refreshing the suspension on my cars made a noticeable difference. Replacing the turbo made a world of difference too. The old one was bad and just wasn’t making the boost. Some new hoses also helped hold that boost in.
On my 2014 Ford Fiesta SE I swapped in the Ford Motorsport handling package consisting of struts, shocks and springs and it made the cheap, fun car more fun. It lowered the front by about 3/4″ and the rear by about 2 1/2″ all for about 300 USD. I understand it was a “check the box” factory option on the German made cars, but not on the Mexican made North American ones. Anyway with its 120 horse power, 5 speed stick and responsive handling it feels like a hot hatch from another century. (-;
I had a B5 S4. Wonderful car. I traded it for an S6.
Anyway, that 2.7t is a great motor and I believe was underrated at 250hp. I think it made well over that on everything except the very hottest of days and even then still cranked quite well. I never really caught it off boost either. Turbo lag was very brief and it would still pull uphill with four people in the car. Yes it was front heavy and that affected the handling accordingly (understeer), but it wasn’t meant to really be a true corner carver either. It was/is a premium compact German sports sedan and did that job almost perfectly. You chose well.
Tires. I bought a b5 s4, at the end of 2021, great condition but tires were 6 yrs old and dry. The car had some weird handling that went away with a fresh set of tires.
Tires.
I’ve had multiple Jeeps and Volvo SUVs. The tires that come on the Jeeps new are ok but look horrible and are definitely just there for the MPGs. Forums are your friend, look for the old guys (like me now I guess) who have had multiple sets on the same vehicle. Find tires that are good, name brand, and do what you want them to. I went for Pro-Comp AT’s when I initially lifted my Jeep but after 30k miles I switched to a set of Goodyear Wrangler AT’s. I had low expectations because the my last two Jeeps, were lifted and had AT’s. I went to the forums when I needed to replace my most recent set and looked at what people who used their Jeeps as DD and mixed off road, and loved or never complained about the rides. Yokohama’s are amazing in ATs as well. (oh and death wobble hasn’t been a thing…..)
My god what a difference. Increase in mileage, average cruising speed, RIDE quality, lower RPM, and power response. Yes just from changing out a set of tires.