Both my front outer tie rod ends were bad so I had Erik at I.P.M. Auto Service replace them and an alignment completed at Firestone. Car drives butter smooth now. Looks like my Rotor have been delayed because of high demand, so I likely will not get them installed until next month. 

Also, anyone that lives around Seattle/Redmond area, Erik is offering a 15% off discount for any service until the 12/23. There is more info at his site IPMAutoService.com. Just tell him Todd from MyS4.org referred you.

Finally got my driver side rear wheel bearing fixed. This was so bad it was like I was driving on a dirt road at 60mph. The sad thing is that this is the second bearing to go in on the same hub in 2 years. If this one goes bad in the same time frame then my hub is going to need to be replaced. Big thanks to Erik at I.P.M. Auto Service for getting it fixed.

Next on my list is to get my passenger side front outer tie rod replaced. The boot around the end has gone missing and its creaking pretty good when you are going around a corner. Hopefully will have that done before our Christmas drive to Northeastern Oregon.

Lastly, my new front rotors should be in the mail soon. I got a pair of Power Slot Cryo Slotted Rotors from aspectuning.com. After researching for several hours, getting the Cryo treatment seemed to be a good investment. Our S4's seem to run into a lot of warping issues, so hopefully this will help. I'm going to pair them up with Akebono Ceramic brake pads. Several people from the forums have been swearing by these pads as they leave almost zero dust and perform very nicely. Hopefully these rotors and pad will be a nice combo. I should have a good review in a month or so.

Alternator is all fixed! I might be imagining things but the S4 feels a lot stronger. Maybe the old alternator was working hard to produce voltage and taking away some power from the engine. I don't know. Anyway had to re-align the fog lights since they were a little off because the bumper was removed. I think I might have some good help for feature project (see left). My daughter is only 1 (21 months) years old and she figured how to help me install a fog light after watch me with the other one.

Anyway, all that is left on the repair list is a possible EGT Sensor and replacing the injector gaskets as one of them has a vacuum leak. Not looking forward to that one as it takes forever to removing the fuel rails, but I've done it before when replacing the Aux Water Pump so hopefully it will go faster.

Well it appears my alternator is on it's way out. The little one was sleeping in the back seat and I was in a parking lot waiting for my wife to come out of the store when my radar detector flashed low voltage. It does that from time to time but usally a power cycle will fix it. This time it did not. A min later the battery light on my car flashed on. This is the first time I've seen that icon. Looked at the ScanGuageII and it says the voltage was 10.1 volts. Oh wow, that's not good. Turned the stereo, blower, and A/C off and volatage went to 11.1 volts. The idle started to get a little ruff so I drove around the block thinking it would help the alternator charge up the battery. Well no luck and the voltage level is starting to dip down again. I guess back to the shop to get it looked at. Currently I'm keeping the battery charged with a battery charger. It seems to be helping for the time being...

Well I got a coolant leak somewhere on the S4. Last weekend when driving to Portland, OR. it started overheating when we were stuck in traffic. I come out to the garage today to find a big puddle of coolant on the floor and zero coolant in the car. Thank god my wife now works at my friend's auto shop... we will see what the issue is now.

Also, got a odd electric motor sound. Hard to explain but it sound like a electric motor running like mad. I don't think it is a bad turbo but something else. I hope it is not the Aux (after run) pump as I just replaced that last summer.

I'm sorry to say, but once the auto loan is paid off it may be time to find something that is more reliable. Seems the more I baby this car the more it craps on me. The credit card can't take anymore... if you know what I mean.

Update... So it is just a leak in the reservoir tank. So a easy fix with a new tank. Parts should be in tomorrow and replaced in no time. Likely time to do a coolant flush since it's mostly running on water.

When driving home with my wife and 1 year old daughter I noticed some hesitation on normal acceleration. So I did a WOT in 2nd gear and man my car did not like that. It start to misfire really bad. So I continued on home and within 2 block of getting there I lost at least 90% of my power. I barely could get the car in the garage. My ScanGaugeII was not picking up any error code so that was not a good sign. Also, my car smelled like sulfur.

I call up my friend Erik that owns I.P.M. Auto Service here in Redmond and ask him if he could bring the Vag-com over. After a quick scan it showed that cylinder 6 was the only one misfiring. We took out the spark plug and it looked just fine. So we swapped in a old OEM coil pack that I had kept just in case. Fired up the S4 and it was running fine. First time I was able to get something fixed in under a hour and at no cost.

What's odd is that all of my coil packs were replaced 2 years ago/30,000 miles so they are not old at all. They are the Beru brand so maybe the quality is not that great. Hopefully the rest of them are ok and stay that way for a while.

Well I got a 3 inch dent in my hood. My little brother in his CRV backed into me while we were installing a HID kit. I didn't notice the dent until a week later. I will post a picture soon.

If you know of anyone that has a Santorin Blue Hood whether its for a S4 or A4 let me know. Send a message here.

Update: Search goes on...
I still have not found a hood. Which is really odd. I figured there would be one in a junk yard around Seattle and nothing. I may have to see if I can go the PDR (paintless dent repair) route.

I know I live in the Seattle area. We don't get much snow normally. This year we have the high chance of having the coldest winter in 50 years. So what does that mean? Maybe 12 inches or more of snow for the winter season. I know it's not a lot. The problem is when a storm hits, pretty much the entire western side of the state shuts down. We don't have enough snow plows nor enough money to really operate them. That being said and having a 1 year old in a one car family, I would say it is important that we are able to get to the place we need to get to no matter the conditions. Plus it is just fun driving around in the snow.... as long as the rest of the state stays off the roads. People around here don't prepare for snow and don't have a clue how to drive in it. Anyways I got these tires off of TireRack.com for about $162 per tire (including shipping). I order them on 11/16 and got them on 11/18... and that was with the cheapest shipping option. I was impressed.

Once we get a storm I will let you know what I think of them. The only think I've notice as of right now is the tires feel very light vs my all-seasons Falken Ziex ZE 912. My thoughts are the side walls are likely not going to be as stiff but that's ok. As long as I don't crack any more rims like I did two years ago when we had a bad storm.

Update: Well we just got our first snow storm this season last night (11/22/2010). I have to say these tires are very good in compact snow and ice. Great grip for braking. I took the S4 out for some fun last night in a parking lot and I have to say that this tires kind of take out the fun in drifting because the grip so well. We did not get enough snow to see how they handle in deep power but I'm sure that they will do well. Anyway, I highly recommend them.