Model years › Audi A4

2009 Audi A4

Complaints about this year name oil far more often than the model's other years — 28% of them, about 12× the usual rate of 2.3%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• takata — 28.1% of this year's complaints, against 9.5% across the model's other years (3×). Owners wrote it as: takata, takata recall, amount time, time recall.
• shudder — 6.7% of this year's complaints, against 0.8% across the model's other years (8.4×). Owners wrote it as: shudder, rest, column, vibrate.
• seal — 6.4% of this year's complaints, against 1.3% across the model's other years (4.9×). Owners wrote it as: seal, main seal, pcv.

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

Also unusual this year

• takata recall — 23% of complaints, 21× usual
• oil consumption — 14% of complaints, 35× usual
• timing chain — 9% of complaints, 22× usual

What owners wrote

MY CAR JUMP TIMING TODAY. I FIRST HAD AND OIL CONSUMPTION ISSUE WITH NEW PISTON AND RINGS INSTALLED. AND IN 2015 AND REAR MAIN SEAL WENT OUT. NOW IN 2016 THE MOTOR JUMP TIMING PULLING OUT OF THE GARAGE THIS MORNING. GREAT PLASTIC TIMING CHAIN TENSIONS AUDI REF…

2009 AUDI A4 WAS RECALLED FOR OIL CONSUMPTION ISSUES. REBUILT IN MARCH OF 2014. JULY 2015 TIMING CHAIN TENSIONER FAILED CAUSING TIMING CHAIN TO JUMP AND DROP A VALVE. CAR IS NOW SITTING AT AUDI DEALERSHIP WITH AN UNFIXABLE ENGINE. THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF EXAMPLE…

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 17V032000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
• 16V376000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2009 Audi A4? What happened to yours?

Loading comments…

How this was worked out

Every year of the Audi A4 was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

Every year of the Audi A4 →