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Audi A4 2.8 Quattro Tiptronic 2001 New Dash Cluster & Engine Oil Change

STP Premium Oil Filter & 16mm M14x1.5 Drain-Bolt
Copper Crush Washer / 24 lb/ft torque wrench tightened
5 quarts (4.73L) 5W-30 HMO Fully Synthetic
15oz (0.443L) STP Polymer Gasket Leak Stopper
DIY Oil Changed Sun, May 7th, 2023
OEM Actual ODO of 93.7K / New Dash ODO 136.8K
Old Engine Oil Recycled @ O'Rileys Auto-part

This A4 2.8 Quattro was purchased brand new in 2001 for about $40k, and kept in a garage for its entire operating life except when driven. Expertly maintained according to service requirements, by Audi of Bellevue, LENS, and me :) 

Now to save money I do the maintenance & repairs during time off on evenings, weekends, etc & enjoy or get a kick out of taking care of my gear DIY style :) 


Sunroof, leather heated power adjustable seats, BOSE premium stereo, full time all wheel drive, manual shifting with steering wheel buttons or the bump mode on the transmission controller pushed over to the right into Tiptronic mode :) 

Its 2000 RPM in 5th gear at 54 MPH getting 46.8 MPG as I hyper-mile it around 50 miles per hour. With a Cd of 0.31 it's actually relatively aero-efficient. Premium Michelin tires all around & this thing is a rocket. 

At 80 MPH the RPMs are 3000, so the top speed over 160MPG before hitting the redline // it can cruise easily at 90MPH but gets 13MPG when driven hard like that. I am able to easily average over 35 MPG by hypermiling it. 

This 2001 Audi A4 2.8 Quattro features a 5 speed automatic with Tiptronic manual shift mode

It was my late mother Connie Schwarz's car for 22 years until her death 3/21/2023 11:20 PM, rendering the vehicle into my possession by inheritance. The DOL title transfer was complicated because the original Title contained by father & mothers name & my father been gone since late 2015, but my sister found his death certificate and gave it to me. Another trip back to the local DOL office & this beautiful angle woman hooked me up with a $42 title transfer & let me keep the original plates with the latest 2024 tab sticker I just installed recently when on the DOL website renewing the registration. 

Insuring All the Vehicles

I put the Audi on my Geico policy with the Nissan LEAF SV, Prius III, PCX150, MT03, Segway MP OG, Hiboy S2 Pro, 1996 Marin EP (Meg's bicycle" and my 2022 Specialized Crossroads / all the vehicles are insured for theft, towing, liability, uninsured motorists, comprehensive & an umbrella coverage.  Geico gives me an astonishing combination discount that means all those vehicles & policies only cost $1400 annually. Without a car payment, the LEAF SV sips quasi-free L3 electricity to the tune of 4.6 mi/kWh via light hypermiling, while the Prius III gets 45-55 MPG on regular pump gas, the PCX150 scooter get 88-103 MPG, the MT03 motorcycle gives 48-83 MPG, the 2019 Segway MP OG 348Wh battery & magnesium alloy frame gets around 890 MPGe & the Hiboy S2 Pro electric kick scooter about 1000 MPGe.

Bicycle Human Energy Economy 

Meg's & I get something like 250-350 MPG-bio-e with metabolic muscle energy driving our bicycles / which is harder to calculate from calories in to movement because of all the factors about our size difference, variable metabolic efficiency based on what exactly we have been eating recently & gastric calorie energy recovery of useable body energy from digested foods & beverages with calorie value energy content. 

Dash Cluster Repair

The OEM dashboard LCD screen has been failing for some time now, making it hard to read the information displayed. I took the unit out and attempted a new LCD solder repair & ended up damaging the speedometer & voltage display units & did not solve the LCD problem either, even after 3 attempts. So after 12 days of online searching I found a used dash cluster from the exact 8D version of the B5 A4 30v V6 sedan II revision 8DO 12VDO version for $134 shipped from a German car junkyard in New Jersey, that has LCD issues but everything else works. Today May, 7th at 4am, I installed the used dash cluster & tested it & it works, though the ODM reading off now. 

Dash Cluster Installed 

New used ODO reading 136,687 
Removed OEM ODO reading 93,743 OEM & unit repair ongoing 
Tested new used dash and it works :) 

Drove to The Grange at 4:20am & filled 60L or 16 gallon-US gas-tank with $17.01 of premium 94 octane ~Ethanol-Free or E0 straight or pure unleaded gasoline by #CENEX available on pumps 1-4

2001 Audi A4 Quattro 2.8 Tiptronic Specs B5 rev II Sedan 4-door 


Engine 

30 valve V-6  of 2771 cc / 169.2 cubic inches displacement 
With 142 kW/193 PS/ 190 hp Power output & 281 Nm/207 lb-ft torque output

Transmission

Torsion T2 limited slip differential enhanced full time AWD drive system features 5 speed fuzzy logic automatic shifting, & Tiptronic manual shifting. 

Accleration Performance 

0-60 mph 8.3 sec 0-100 km/h 8.8 sec, 0-200 km/h 48.4 sec 1/4 mile 16.3 sec

Dimensions 

Wheelbase: 2607 mm / 102.6
Length 4522 mm/178 
Width 1733 mm/68.2
Height 1418 mm/55.8 
Passenger volume EPA: 87.8 cu ft 
Drag coefficient (Cw-Wert) Cd 0.31 
Curb weight (no driver): 1590kg or 3505 lbs
Fuel capacity: 60 liter / 15.9 U.S. gal / 13.2 imp. gal 


High Quality & Made in Germany

They didn't use plastic in critical engine parts like the water pump or intake housing, unlike newer VW Group made Audi models that have complex expensive repairs because of engine plastics after 6-8 years or 80,000 mi ODO respectively. Does not burn oil even though it has almost 95,000 mi ODO & 22 years old, meaning the engine was machined with good precision. A well made gasoline vehicle engine does not burn oil during its operation. I change the engine oil early in all my vehicles to keep the engine protected from wear as much as possible as used motor oil acidic & corrosive & contains nasty sludge forming components. 

I also use synthetic motor oil with the best additives & in this Audi add a HMO or high mileage operation oil system viscous sealer to keep the pinhole leak on the crank seal from dripping a few drops of oil after the vehicle is driven hot for a while & then allowed to cool down. 

During these cold to hot & back to cold thermal cycle, a small 1ml drop or so of engine oil would leak onto a cardboard liner on the garage floor to capture the oil, since its been leaking like this very slowly ever since Audi of Bellevue rebuilt the engine at 64,000 ODO after they messed up the timing belt & water pump repair, causing the interference engine to smash the pistons into the valves. 

They had to install new pistons, new rings, new crank bearings, new crankshaft, new engine block, new engine heads, new water pump, new belts, new timing belt, and many other sensors & things were changed free of charge by the dealer since they messed up the $2500 service. 

At 80,000 mi ODO I put a new engine oil filter & cleaned out the MAF sensor. I run fuel cleaner & upper cylinder head lubricant through the stabilized ethanol free gasoline to keep the fuel lines, fuel pump, fuel rail, fuel injectors & fuel sensors clean of wax or polymer deposits & add Sta-Bil to the ethanol free fuel to enhance its shelf life since we only drive this vehicle on Sunday to church & back around 85 mi round trip, or about 400 mi per month max. 

Time to change the Engine Oil! Did it :) Updated with Image at Top of Posting! 

Next Oil Change #Audi #A4 #oilchange 
5 quarts 5w-40 fully synthetic motor oil 
New oil filter OEM equivalent 
New oil drain bolt & washer 
+ HMO viscous oil additive to stop crank seal leak (tested & it works) 

I was very careful to check the engine oil dipstick repeatedly during the oil change, after draining out the old spent oil into an oil pan for recycling, then using the new 16mm nickel plated steel M14-1.5 drain bolt with a copper crush washer & 16mm torque wrench socket to tighten it down to 24lb-ft torque. A strap wrench used to remove the old VD90 oil filter & a new 3421 STP premium filter (see box with oil parts in trunk for exact part #) was installed & torqued down hand tight as tight as my hands could tighten it before slipping, probably 18 lb-ft, tight enough to not unscrew. 

Its very important to not overfill the oil in this kind of engine, and you keep adding oil a few hundred milliliters at a time until the oil level on the dip-stick gets to the middle or upper part of the hash-mark cross hatched section. Run the engine until the oil temp 140F or 60C, then turn it off, wait 3 minutes & check again. I always pull the dip-stick out & wipe it off with a bit of paper towel so there is no oil left on the end, then carefully reinsert it back into the oil-dip stick tube, pulling it out & then holding it at an angle for close visual inspection of the oil level. 

After church we collected the needed supplies $58 from Autozone & then came home where I did the oil change DIY style since I like doing it myself to know its done properly :) I saved the spent motor oil in an old metal 5g gas can & then brought it to the local auto-parts store to empty the jug into their spent motor oil collection container in the back. They were so busy with customers at the O'reillys in Issaquah that the employee I encounter said it was ok for me to go in the back & dump my red metal oil can with spent motor oil into their large rectangular blue painted steel used motor oil collection container, making it a 2 min in & out affair. 

I put down used news paper in the trunk under the oil can to keep any funk off the trunk liner, and took the title image picture after driving for 10 minutes to make sure nothing was leaking & to document the new bolt & filter install. 

19mm OEM Drain Bolt Saved

OEM drain bolt oiled blackened steel with 3 letters stamped into the 19mm hex bolt head. I saved the old drain-bolt in the trunk, in a small bot with a little extra 5W-30 in a small bottle, and the drain bolt washer kit, inside a plastic bag, in a trunk box. 

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