Audi S4 B8/B8.5 Buyers Guide (2010-2016 UK)

I love my 2013 S4, it’s powerful, practical and makes me smile every time I get in it. I bought it for around £16,000 and it’s in great condition, especially for a 7 year old car and 60,000 miles. I covered why you’d want to buy one of these in my review, so go check that out in the cards above if you need convincing, but otherwise let me talk you through what to look for when buying one.

Starting with the model year, there are two options. B8, which is 2009/2010 – 2013, and B8.5 which is 2013 – 2016. B8.5 models are almost identical, with only pretty minor differences between the two, but if you can get a B8.5 they do have a couple of nice tweaks and improvements. The easy way to tell if the car you are looking at is the newer B8.5 is to look at the gear selector. If it has the round shifter like this with the S4 badge on top, it’s a B8.5. If it has the wider, plain black shifter, it’s a B8.

The front and rear headlights are also slightly different, the newer B8.5 model has a flowing line LED running light, vs individual lights that make up a line for the B8 – same at the rear too. I much prefer the newer style, it looks a lot more modern and refined to me.

In terms of mechanical tweaks, it’s only minor things like an improved PCV valve – positive crankcase ventilation – and an improved water pump with a little vacuum hose to help limit flow when the engine heats up so it heats up quicker. The engines produce the exact same power, the gearboxes are still dual clutch autos, and it’s the same quattro all wheel drive system. It really is just a few minor tweaks.

Moving onto the options, there really weren’t many to choose from. The main package choice was getting a “Black Edition” like mine, really just some black badges and the nicer 5 spoke rotor wheels, although you could have optioned them on the regular S4 anyway. There are a few tech upgrades, apparently you could have got it with the sports rear diff, it had torque vectoring built in, although I can’t find any in the UK so maybe not. There was also things like upgraded MMI – the infotainment system, and adaptive dampers, so that’s something to look out for.

As for inspecting one, there are a couple of common issues with them to look out for. First is the front suspension upper ball joints. Audi decided to use 2 pivoting ball joints at the top here instead of a single fixed arm, which means they are prone to failure. You can just about see them with the car on the ground, and you’ll hear knocking from the front on your test drive.

You’ll also want to make sure that if the car has more than 40-50,000 miles that it’s had a gearbox fluid change as that’s pretty much the only thing that goes wrong with them. New – correct – fluid helps keep the clutches alive for longer, and shifting smoothly. This is especially true on the older B8 model, as it had a slightly more failure-prone version of the 7 speed DCT gearbox, which was updated for the B8.5 model.

In the engine bay, you can check the area around the water pump to see if there are any leaks. The pump has a passage where coolant can drain through if the seal starts leaking. If you see coolant, it’ll need replacing which is a supercharger off job. The same goes for the thermostat, which can stick open or closed at higher mileages too, and if you are replacing one, it’s good practice to replace both – and the PCV while you are there.

Otherwise, there isn’t too much else to look for. There were quite a few different options that Audi would have let you spec that aren’t too obvious, so you might have to hunt around to find the right car for you, or be willing to hunt specific parts down later and retrofit. If you can find one with a sports diff here in the UK, you should definitely get that one as it’s rare as all hell but apparently anyway, makes a world of difference.