[Biturbos4] A milestone

[Richard van der Hoff]

So I'm happy to report that I got my car back last week. Ended up with 
an Audi wing and bumper, pattern bonnet and headlight, new foglights. 
lock carrier and radiator from Audi too. It cost me about £3600 in the 
end, which is about what the insurers ended up valuing it at before the 
accident. So I ended up down financially for the cost of the salvage - 
about £500 - but I got to keep the car I know and love, and I'm glad I 
spent the insurance money on getting it fixed up instead of getting 
something new.

In the process I learnt a lot more about VIN breaks and what would and 
would not fit from other cars. Particularly loved the fact that the 
foglights were unique to 1998 - 1999.5 S4s. Not likely to find many of 
them sitting around in a scrapyard, then.

For the record:

On 22/02/12 09:25, Richard van der Hoff wrote:
> On the subject of parts, you guys might be able to help me out. I need a
> new lock carrier. ETKA lists 8D0 805 594 AJ for this, but also says you
> also need a new radiator - 8D0 121 251 BB. The body shop has spoken to
> his supplier who said that the design of the lock carrier changed, so
> that the original rad won't fit. Obviously this hikes the cost quite a lot!
>
> Can anyone confirm that? Any idea what the part number for the original
> lock carrier was?

I couldn't find an original lock carrier anywhere (again, unique to a 
year and a half's worth of S4), so had to get both the updated lock 
carrier, and a new radiator. The new radiator was also unique to the 
(post-facelift) S4, so that also had to come from the dealer, since the 
normal aftermarket manufacturers obviously saw it as too much of a niche 
market. (The original radiator was shared with pretty much any A4 or A6 
with an autobox and a 2.4-2.8L engine.)