Savage Audi A4

[FarmerPug]

My cousin (the one who bought the 307) came round to the house today with an A4 he is considering buying, its a B5 possibly 02-04 ish with 127k on the clock.

The thing is the car has been remapped as far as it can go, it runs rough on idle, the exhaust is a modified setup with two massive tailpipes and only a silencer box, the cat and whatever else is gone.

Taking the car for a test drive is unlike anything I've ever drove before, there is immense torque in every gear, if you touch the throttle at all in anything up to 3rd the traction control light flashes, turn it off and press the throttle and it just spins and torque steers, in the town it would be an absolute nightmare. I have no idea what sort of remap this is 180bhp wouldn't come close. My cousin was worried that this power would shear the driveshafts, I'm surprised that the clutch hasn't turned to dust.

The rest of the car is in terrible condition, its been smoked in, the dash has a disco of lights, the trim inside is scratched and badly worn (the interiors of these older audis just seem to wear away), the glovebox lid dropped off its hinge when opened. Then opening the bonnet and getting the engine cover off there is a number of spots plastered in oil.

My cousin wouldn't mind buying the car if it can be de mapped back to a more sensible level of power but given the state the car is in i would advise just staying clear of it.
What is the story with these 1.9 enginges, looking around it everything on it looks to be standard, how can just a remap get so much extra power?

[Bailes1992]

The PDs remap very well indeed!
Very reliable but they must have their special PD oil replaced religiously or otherwise they wear te cam lobes.
A stage on tune on one of these goes from 130 to 170bhp!
I was going to buy a B5 Passat 4motion a few years ago and the main thing that stuck out to me wa the fact you can get loads of power out of them very cheaply!

I personally wouldn't buy it if it was tuned that much. That's just asking for trouble.

Funny enough I test drove a Passat W8 today for the Missus! What a machine that was!

[davew]

if it's a b5 the most they came with would be 130bhp and with a good map no more than 175/180bhp unless it's had more work bigger injectors and hybrid turbo, my mate had a mk4 golf was originally a 150bhp with a audi q7 turbo rolling roaded at 275bhp.
my passat was a 130bhp remapped to about 175bhp decatted bigger intercooler and straight through exhaust and boy was it quick 3rd gear in the dry and it would spin up, pd engines have crazy torque low down my dual mass clutch last 2 weeks after mine was mapped.
i had bmw 320d mapped to about 190bhp and now my 406 mapped to about 140bhp both feel slow compared to the vw

[FarmerPug]

This felt more than 180bhp, my other cousin has an A6 2.0 TDi remapped to 180bhp and it doesn't feel like this a4, having said that the A6's clutch/DMF is wrecked.

The only visible modification was the exhaust system, pulling the engine cover off nothing looks like its been changed, i was expecting a bigger turbo, or intercooler but parked up beside another standard 1.9 tdi a4 it looked the same except for the filthy condition of the engine and ruined engine mounts.

It will be interesting to see how this compares against the 3.0 V6 A4 that we are still waiting for the parts to get started up, the quattro will probably make it a bit easier to handle.

A Passat W8, please discuss further.

[davew]

sometimes is depends on how does the map when i got mine done the guy who mapped it said he could put a map on it which didn't have as much low down torque which would be easier on the clutch but as the clutch was quite old i was expecting to fit on at some point away so i ask for the most powerful map he had and boy was it savage, i had to wait until the revs got above 2000rpm before giving it full beans or it felt like the dual mass flywheel was going to shake it self to bits.
everyone how drove the car thought it had much more power than it had i think it was just the way it was delivered.

[Busman]

From your description, this would need to be really cheap. And you'd expect to be having to sort out all the problems. there are lots of good second hand cars out there, I would keep looking.

[Welly]

This thing sounds to me like a disaster waiting to happen, why's it for sale if it's so good?

Getting lots of power from remapping is the easy bit, keeping it reliable and usable is the hard bit.

If I was a betting man I'd say this car has 'hinted' at future problems already, like a slipping clutch or it may have overheated once and the seller wants to shift it on......