[Biturbos4] New Turbo Date

[Philip Pace]

You're getting closer. The date was 10/00. The new badges, in my expert opinion,
were dumped in with the old; there are 2001.5 cars with the old badge and 2001 cars
with the new. I'm not really a badge expert, but I play one on the internet.

The tell tale sign is the M prefix on the ECU. You can use an M on an earlier H box,
but not the other way around.

I religiously warmed up and cooled down my car and my turbos failed at ~35k. The
most abuse my car suffered was in the hands of porters and mechanics at the Audi
dealer. Though the only hard evidence was my boost gauge that recorded peak boost
(.6 bar) when the porter brought me my car after it had been sitting for a few days
in 0-10ºF weather. The giant hole put in a tire (the tire shop said it looked like I
hit a railroad tie or something) was another indicator, but that could have just
happened on its own while it was sitting on the lift or something.

--- Ti Kan <ti at amb.org> wrote:
> j y writes:
> > I don't know the EXACT date but the badging is not an indicator. If
> > the build date on your S4 is late 2001 or 2002 - u should be safe. Early
> > 2001 build date, or earlier, u are probably running on the poorly designed
> > turbos.
> 
> For what it's worth, I was told that if the engine ECU's part number has
> an 'M'-suffix (shown in VAG-COM or physically on the label), then it's
> got the improved turbos too.  My car has the new style badge, 'M'-suffix
> ECU, and is a 2001 model with a 10/00 build-date.  I think mine is one of
> the first batch of the "2001.5"s.
> 
> My car is on the original turbo, now at 46K miles and the only ailment
> is a sometimes-unresponsive sunroof switch.  Knock on wood for turbo
> longevity.
> 
> -Ti