Car advice Audi A4
- Thread starter wilber
- Start date
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
In theory, yes...in reality, no. I saw a 2004 1.8T-Q and a 2.5V6-Q and whilst well priced (the trade seems to hate them), they both had service/maintence/repair invoices as long as your arm with all sorts of gremlins needing £300 here, £500 there. The owner of one those cars I saw had spent over £2k of work in the space of 12 months and he was only the 2nd owner. It seems that there are a lot of little mechanical or electrical/electronic things that can go wrong with those Quattros.
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It's less so the fact that they are Quattros and more the fact (at least with the 1.8T) that the engine electrics have a mind of their own.
My 1.8T LCR loves to play EML bingo, and can quite happily throw up utter random failures whenever it feels like it.
My 1.8T LCR loves to play EML bingo, and can quite happily throw up utter random failures whenever it feels like it.
^ Not just electricals grubbins from what I saw, mechanical grubbins as well. From memory, there was an invoice for about ~£800 for suspensions parts, some for diagnostics regarding a 'knock from rear', another for lambda sensors, and so on and so on. Not saying that it couldn't happen to any high mileage car, but there does seem to be more to go wrong on a 1.8T-Q and Audi parts/labour isn't cheap. Mpg won't be that great either. Unless I spent most of my time driving through snowy forests, a Quattro isn't really the most sensible car to buy on a £4k budget.
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Thats pretty much what happens with old BMW's and Audi's though, only the 'I have £3k its all the money i have in the world but I refuse to buy a Ford' brigade kid themselves otherwise surely?
Nobody buys a £4k Audi with any sort of mind on low cost? Do they? Surely? Really?
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[TW]Fox;20009554 said:Thats pretty much what happens with old BMW's and Audi's though, only the 'I have £3k its all the money i have in the world but I refuse to buy a Ford' brigade kid themselves otherwise surely?
Nobody buys a £4k Audi with any sort of mind on low cost? Do they? Surely? Really?
Mk3 Mondeos go wrong as well. The suspension components in the earlier ones were made of cheese, though obviously the replacement cost is going to be lower that the equivalent Audi. Even with my banger Mk3 Mondeo, all of the suspension needs to be redone along with all of the brake pipes which had almost rusted through. Can't say I've ever heard of having to replace all of the brake pipes on a car because of rust. I certainly don't remember having to replace any brake pipes in my 323i, and that was a 160k, 11 year old car by the time it went to the BMW garage in the sky. Also the typical middle of the road Mondeo owner doesn't tend to want to spend money on the car.
As for buying £4k Audis, as I said above, I would buy one, (with the expectation the servicing/parts costs would be higher) though I certainly wouldn't expect things to be breaking every 6 months. I spoke to my local cabbie and he said that in a 100k, the only thing he had to replace on his TDI130 was the clutch, so its not as if they can't be reliable.
But given the wallet risks, I would certainly want to take the time to find a proper, genuinely mechnically well kept, 2 reputable owner, FASH example, and try to keep things simple specwise. Personally, I didn't find a very well kept car in 3 weekends of looking though admittedly I was looking for a certain spec.
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You were very lucky then, its a known E46 thing and our garaged 24/7 Z4 is already beginning to suffer from corrosion on the brake pipes.
I honestly think that at this end of the market perhaps 1 in every 10 cars of this type are the rare gem thats actually worth buying. To most buyers though, provided it has the bling and the badge they dont care.
[TW]Fox;20009951 said:
Yeh this. That's why I have been looking religiously for the past 8-9 weeks. There are a lot of complete wrecks out there, been to see some shockers which I have been told are in good condition over the phone, 2 which have been Cat D's.
I wanted to know what the Audi A4 2.0 FSI SE was like and i got a fair idea from the post's now, so Thanks everyone.