Sometimes, it helps to be picky. Dating, for example, or waiting to find the right house before plunking down a lump deposit. When it comes to big decisions, pickiness is a virtue, but it can also be a pain when shopping for a used car with a nigh-on impossible set of desires. Then again, if you’ve ever been accused of being too picky, perhaps the original Audi S5 is exactly the sort of Goldilocks car you’ve been looking for all along.
Alright, so it might not fit the bill if you’re looking for an off-roader or a dedicated sports car, but as a daily driver, the first Audi S5 is an intriguing proposition. It’s almost in a genre of its own, and pairs unique performance traits with styling and an interior that’s aged very well indeed.
Best of all, 15 years or so of depreciation have knocked a serious chunk out of this interest-piquing coupe’s resale value. You can now buy one for less than $12,000 even on one of those fancy auction sites, and that’s a tempting proposition.
What Are We Looking At?
Make no mistake, this is one of the few row-your-own, V8, all-wheel-drive, all-weather coupes ever made. When the S5 Coupe debuted, it featured a glorious naturally aspirated 4.2-liter V8 pumping out 354 horsepower at 6,800 rpm and 325 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,500 rpm. Respectable numbers today, and with a soundtrack you just don’t get in most luxury cars anymore. Buyers had a choice between a six-speed torque converter automatic transmission or a six-speed manual, and that latter gearbox helped the S5 leap from zero-to-60 mph in a properly zesty 4.8 seconds during Car And Driver instrumented testing. Of course, even when you weren’t absolutely on it, the V8 added plenty of drama, as Car And Driver eloquently described:
When you drive with the windows down around town, you hear a terrific V-8 burble from the quad exhaust pipes. When feeling lazy, you can almost forget about shifting because the engine will take full throttle at 1000 rpm in sixth gear perfectly smoothly. And at any speed, the V-8 spins with an eager and refined hum.
Plus, for the S5, Audi pulled the front axle forward compared to the old S4, set up the Torsen center differential in the Quattro all-wheel-drive system for a default 40:60 front-to-rear torque split, and offered a proper torque vectoring rear differential under the very imaginative moniker of “Sport Differential.” While these tweaks didn’t suddenly turn the S5 into a BMW M3 competitor, it was sharper than any previous S-car, yet still a rolling sculpture of gorgeous design and upscale interior materials. Who wouldn’t want to daily drive that?
How Much Are We Talking?
Although the original S5 carried a princely price tag when it was new, you won’t need investment banker money to buy one used. If you live in an area with hellish traffic, the ease of the optional automatic gearbox is perfectly fine, and this automatic 2010 model year car recently sold on Cars & Bids for just $10,200. Considering it only has 97,300 miles on the clock, lived in sunny California for most of its life, and comes with the desirable sport differential and Bang & Olufsen audio system, that’s a hell of a lot of car for the money.
However, let’s say you do want to row your own gears, and are looking for more of a high-mileage hero. This 2009 manual S5 might be more your speed. It doesn’t have the desirable “peeler” wheels or the sport differential, but it did sell for just $7,000 on Cars & Bids back in May, and it sports a clean Carfax. While 143,800 miles is on the high end, it’s not something to fear in these cars, and that low, low hammer price makes it intriguing.
Alright, so what about an example that falls somewhere in between the black S5 and the silver S5? Well, how about this blue 2009 S5? It sold on Bring A Trailer late last year for just $9,700, had 106,000 miles on the clock, and featured the lovely touches of the Bang & Olufsen sound system and the six-speed manual gearbox. Talk about temptation.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong On A V8 Audi S5?
I know what you’re probably thinking — don’t Audi V8s have timing chain problems? While the V8-powered S4 that preceded the S5 had catastrophically expensive timing system issues, the S5 took a page from the RS4 and used its metal timing guides and tensioners. This means that timing system failures aren’t at all widely reported on V8 Audi S5s, so perhaps prior stigma is depressing current values.
In fact, the most common issue with the V8 S5 is one that’s shared with pretty much all cars with gasoline direct injection — carbon buildup. Periodic walnut cleaning to break up carbon deposits on the backs of the valves is a good idea, so expect to spend around $500 at an independent shop every 60,000 miles to restore power and efficiency.
That actually brings us onto another potential issue with the Audi S5, and that’s the intake runner flaps getting gunged up with carbon. Thankfully, owners report that removing the manifold and cleaning out the carbon deposits frequently fixes this issue for a few hundred dollars worth of labor. However, if everything’s beyond saving, a new intake manifold costs $1,713.99 from FCP Euro, but that’s a relatively rare worst-case scenario.
Should You Buy A V8 Audi S5?
Normally, heavily depreciated German luxury cars are vehicles to stay away from, especially when they’re high-performance variants. However, with time, the V8-powered Audi S5 has proven reliable enough that it could still make a good daily driver today. Sure, the threat of the intake manifold potentially being too clogged up with carbon to save is real, but if you set aside $2,000, that’s the only major thing you’d need to worry about.
Besides, where else are you getting a coupe that does everything the original Audi S5 does? From the V8 soundtrack to the all-wheel-drive snow traction to the involvement of a manual transmission, it’s a rare combination that could’ve only happened between 2008 and 2012.
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer, Cars & Bids)
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