Will this be enough LM for the S4 w/ alcantara?

out of the blue i got a job lined up for next weekend. its a sweet little thang. 2001 B5 Audi S4 Stage III. Nogaro Blue with blue alcantara interior on the seats and door cards. the guy wants my most in-depth interior detail job done, and basically told me he would pay a premium for such a service. will be doing full correction for him in the spring. would be doing it all at once, but he's getting some body work done soon after he was side swiped or soemthing, so obviously the correction is out of the question for a while. anywho, the interior includes a lot of alcantara, and i'm going to be trying out Leather Masters Foam Cleaner on the alcantara:

http://www.detailersdomain.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=34

and the Leather Masters Nubuck Protection:

http://www.detailersdomain.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=338

will this be enough product for the alcantara for the in the whole car? i've got the rest of the leather covered, but im curious if i should order another one of each before next week.

pic for reference:


(not his car, but just so you guys have an idea how much alcantara is in the car)

 

lucky guy. one of my favorite cars, in the best color they offered.

 

hells yeah. its going to be a really fun job. Stage III S4's are straight ANIMALS. they usually put down at least 400AWHP. one of my favs too. i've contemplated getting one, but after all the issues i had with my K04 B5 A4, i couldnt bring myself to buy another audi that had two more cylinders and one more turbo....i'd rather have a really fun, brand new car thats under warranty for a while = MKV GTI

i'll be doing this job at my fire house, so get ready for a nice write up/pics/photoshoot!

PS: Laser Red is the best B5 Audi color!!!!!! nogaro comes in second IMO.

 

Now you can try the infratech on this, and let know how you like it.

 

yeah i really wanna do a bang up job for this guys ride. he's a fellow VAG enthusiast who cares greatly about his vehicle, even to the extent that he was telling me how he is careful about how he gets in and out of it (jeans on the alcantara over and over = blue stains). i'll definitely have the infratech by the time his car is ready for correction in the spring.

 

Oooh nice, look forward to this one. I'm looking forward to see how things work out with the leather :thumb:

 

do you guys think i will need to order extras on both the foam cleaner and nubuck protector? i havent used either product yet and im kinda worried i might not have enough alcantara cleaner as it doesnt exactly state what size the foam cleaner is...

EDIT: HELP PHIL!!!!

 

Thatll be enough protectant, not sure about the cleaner though.

 

yeah thats what im most worried about. im going to have to shoot phil an email.

 

I can't offer any help to your question, but can I ask a favor? Let us know how that LM stuff works out. I recently did a Ford Lightning that had a bunch of Alcantara on it, which caught me by surprise. I'm probably going to see that truck again come spring time, so it'd be nice to know if that stuff works well.

Side note: a few vehicles ago, I had a 2000 S4, with what my tuning guy called a "Stage 3 minus." Basically as much power as you can get out of one without changing the injectors and the fuel pump. It dyno'd at a shade over 400 wheel HP on a Mustang AWD dyno! It was an absolute animal in a straight line. GIAC software, K04s, RS4 intercoolers, lots of AWE stuff including a beautiful dual exhaust system with a set of test pipes. Some sort of high end coilovers, beautiful Fikse 3 piece wheels, pretty much everything you can think of, that car probably had it. I bought it already modified, and the guy who sold it to me lost his ass on it. Thousands and thousands of dollars in mods on that car.

BUT...it was always a roll of the dice regarding whether or not the car would start in the morning. Sometimes it just wouldn't. CELs all the time, random misfires, lots of little expensive sensors endlessly needing replaced, and an ongoing struggle to keep it from leaking power steering fluid all over. The power windows had a mind of their own. The worst part, though, is that I found the car intimidating to work on, so I usually paid a specialist to look after it. The smallest repair bill I ever had for that car was like $800. By about the sixth month I had it, I was so sick of it going wrong on me that I sold it, replacing it with the S2000 in my avatar.

 

Good story, I enjoyed reading that. I guess you have to pay to play, right?

 

Apparently :lol: Mostly, the experience left me soured on VW/Audi products, at least, modified versions of them. I don't know if they're still this way, but there was so much "stuff" crammed into the engine bay, that a lot of the times it broke - which was frequently - the whole front end of the car had to come off. Parts weren't necessarily any more expensive than anything else, labor was the killer.

The power steering leak began on the very first day I owned the car. That was a sign, and I should have paid attention. The hose that popped ran through the valley of the engine, and under the intake manifold. The part was only like $150 or so, but the total bill with all the labor was $800.

Shortly after I got rid of the car, I came to learn that it was eventually going to need its front ball joints replaced. There are four of them, and it was a matter of "when," not "if," they were going to fail.

I never did ask the guy I bought it from how much money he had in it with all the mods. There was stuff done to that car that he didn't even know about - the RS4 clutch, the RS4 intercoolers, some sort of clever oil lines for the turbos. Those wheels alone were at least $3000 a set, and I think the AWE exhaust was close to $1000. The car came with a big box full of mods that he decided he didn't like. Three different short shifters, a different grille, a few boxes of brake pads, a spare ECU, among other stuff.

I dunno...maybe I just had a bad one. Small wonder it was a low mileage car when I bought it - it probably wouldn't start!

 

yeah stage III- cars are full RS4 K04 setups minus the fueling like you said. the car is will be working with next weekend is an ASP Tuning StageIII. ASP builds some of the baddest and most powerful S4's in the country. you should see some of their GT28 turbo'd S4's. some of them are pushing 900+AWHP !!! anyways, i will indeed be putting together a write up with pictures and my processes of the job.

and trust me i know ALLLL about the reliability issues involved with VAG cars. CEL's. they're a way of life baby. if there's no CEL somethings seriously wrong haha. being able to work on your own VAG car is a huge advantage though. after taking my audi to the stealership when i first bought it, i vowed to never take it in again and there after jumped in head first and now do all my work myself. unless its under warranty for my new GTI.

 

you can build a nice StageIII - motor for around $4k. from the sound of the parts you mentioned though it sounds like the guys was going for an RS4 conversion motor, which gets very pricey. probably had at least 5-6K in the car all togther.

 

haha its not just you. they're all like that unfortunately. youd be hart pressed to find a problem free turbo'd audi, especially a modded one. my K04'd A4 is a freakin mess lol. and i take good care of her.

 

I forgot that for a while, the tach on the S4 didn't work. The next day, it did.

Re: working on it yourself...you're a braver man than me, that's for sure. I called the engine bay on my S4 "The Heart of Darkness." Lots of stuff that I just didn't know what it was for - it looked completely unlike any car I've ever owned. And I'm not unskilled - I built and maintained my own road race car for years. I guess mostly I found the S4 intimidating to work on. I was fearful that I'd make it worse.

Since you're a VAG guy, I'll ask you, maybe you can clear something up for me. What's wrong with them that they're so unreliable? It's a surprise to me. Any time I read a review of a new VW product, the article inevitably goes on and on about how well made the car is. But nearly universally, people tell me they have problems with them. What gives?

 

the newer model audi's and MKV VW's are holding up very well from my understanding. most of the issues that older (B5) chassis audis were turbo related in some way shape or form. to be honest, there's no real definitely answer on the reliability issues, but most of them revolve around turbo related issues or the motors being built as turbo'd motors. and then there's the infamous timing belt issues...bah, thats whole essay right there. like you said, the issues could be anything from the tach not working all the time, to your timing belt snapping pre-maturely, thus causing the motor to throw a couple rods and well....you know how that turns out. then again there are guys who say they're have little to no serious issues with their B5/6 turbo's audis. its a crap shoot.

 

I should apologize for taking your thread so far off topic...:sorry:

I have to admit...I'm a whole lot happier with a basically stock S2000. It's the only car I've ever had that was already so good that it didn't really "need" any mods done to it to be a nice car to drive. The stuff I've done is to make it a better autocross car, but I wouldn't call any of it necessary stuff. The shocks I've got on it actually make a car that already rode kind of hard ride seriously, rattle your teeth hard. The exhaust is nice and light weight, but impossibly loud. The heim joints on the adjustable sway bar rattle and creak and groan. In a lot of ways, it'd be a better car if I'd left it alone.

Seems to me, just from knowing people who have had VAG products, that a lot of the problems are of the electrical nature. The drivetrains themselves (apart from the turbos) seem to be pretty robust. I guess they'd have to be, with the amount of power some people are getting out of S4s.

The guy I bought the S4 from had purchased it brand new. When I got it, it had about 30K miles on it, and was six years old. The whole reason - well, one of the reasons - he modded it was that the turbos failed. In less than 30K miles!

Yet another friend of mine who lives up in Connecticut has a B5 S4 with its original k03s on it. The car's got at least 120K miles on it...never had a moments trouble out of the car. Not one problem. I guess you're right - it's a crap shoot.

 

no problem at all as far as it getting off topic. i love me a good conversation about VAG cars haha. its kind of funny because a lot of people on the audi forums are always making threads like "YAY my turbo(s) blew!". its funny because people almost like expect it and count it as a blessing for them to go BT (big turbo) haha. instead of people treating it as a catastrophic failure, they are happy about it. we're a crazy breed of enthusiasts.

 

BTW, what do you guys think i should use a cleaning media for the LM foam cleaner on the alcantara. i want to be as gentle on the alcantara as possible, but still get some good cleaning power. maybe some detail sponges? or just MF towels? i was thinking maybe wrapping one end of my SV leather brush in a DD Uber and using that in swirling/brushing motions on the alcantara...haha i dunno just throwing ideas out there.