Audi Advice

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bigltc

Member
The wife test drove a 2001 Audi A6 with 4.2L V8, sport pkg, and awd today with 65,000 miles. Does anybody have any experience with this car? I've never owned an Audi an I'm concerned about the maintenance especially with any electrical problems. I'd appreciate any input!



Thanks
 
Hi: I do have an Audi, fortunately its a 2006, but I have a couple of friends with older ones. 65,000 is not a lot of miles on this car, and if maintained the way it should have, it shouldn't be so bad, but the posibility is definately there for repairs, and it can get more expensive than an American car. But what a car it is.
 
You will LOVE the engine. I have an S4 with the same engine and its awesome. I personally have had no issues with my Audi, but I know the perception is out there that they are unreliable cars. I don't know if in the past few years Audi started making a better car, but I have not heard of many problems lately. You may want to go to Audiworld and read up on that year's A6 to see what the common problems are. Will you be getting the Extended Warranty from the Dealer? Hopefully a warranty up to 100,000 miles will be available
 
It may be pricy, but sometimes you can buy a manufacturer's warranty on a used car through the dealer even if you don't buy the car there.
 
I would post this question over on the forums where lp2137 mentioned. I would specifically go to Audiworld forum for the A6/S6 C5.



AudiZine doesn't break the models down by platform (the C5 was produced from 1998-2004.



I own my first Audi (2005 A4 Ultrasport 1.8 6MT) and love it, hasn't given me a bit of trouble since I got it in late 2004. The ride, fit and finish is very tough to beat.



That said, if the car isn't being sold as CPO (certified Pre-owned) then you'd really better do some checking before plopping any cash down.



All the parts for Audi's are sold out of Germany, there is one Factory Warehouse in the States but they don't carry everything and at all time. OEM parts for any car are expensive but German cars (Audi, BMW) are like insanely so sometimes.



It's a know fact that owning a German car out of warranty can rack up some significant repair costs should it need to go in.



Also Audi had some quality issues with the earlier models (at least with the A4's) recall's and the like.



HTH



MorBiD
 
bigltc- We've had a number of '01 Audis with the 4.2 V8, including *three* A6 4.2s. The single most important thing IMO is to make sure you get one with a *GOOD* drive-by-wire system (and hope it stays that way).



One of my A6 4.2s was so bad response-wise (never knew if it'd go when I hit the gas or whether it'd pause for a while and *then* go) that my dealer applied the whole purchase price (including sales tax, etc. :ek: ) towards my S8 even though the A6 had 12k miles on it! The owner of the dealership knew he'd be looking at a lawsuit if the problem caused an accident and everone knew the car was scary to drive.



One of the other a6 4.2s was *perfect*, no D-B-W issues at all. The other one and my '01 S8 were/are just so-so; irritating but not dangerous.



The D-B-W issues apparently *cannot be fixed*. They replaced a mountain of parts on the one car with no improvement. Owners of S6 wagons seem to be especially plagued by this problem BTW, and a friend with a S8 identical to mine (other than his marring ;) ) has pretty bad D-B-W issues that he just lives with because he otherwise loves the car so much. But back to A6s..



Other than that, they're nice cars to drive but they seem to need lots of maintenance. Sorry, but I forget the specifics as this was quiete a few years ago. They *do* seem to go through tires, even when the alignment is kept spot-on (sorta like some NSXs in this regard). The only electrical issues I can remember were related to airbag warning lights and seat functions. I *would* however, make sure you have a dealer you can trust..Audis are simply not low-maintenance vehicles. I sold the best of our A6s to a close friend, who ended up trading it in on a Lexus just to get away from the sort of frequent, if minor, things that I take for granted. She loved driving it, but was used to vehicles that never need anything other than fluids and filters. I forget just what kinds of issues it had, but I do know that the dealer she patronized (not the dealer *I* use) sure jerked her around a lot and didn't seem to fix anything right the first time. Some coolant leak/water pump?/something issue drove her nuts.



Honestly, speaking as a guy who had a few of them, I'd think twice about getting one for your significant other unless you're prepared to put a little time/effort into its maintenance. It sounds to me like you're concerned about exactly what *I* learned to expect from these cars. I thought the one car, the "good" A6 4.2, would be *perfect* for my friend and I gave her a great deal on it, but she and her husband kinda implied that I sold them a troublesome car that was just a big headache...
 
I had a friend with that same car and right at that milage the whole steering system started to go so he got rid of it.
 
In my experience Audis are hit-or-miss in the quality department. I had an '00 TT that was in the repair shop more than it was in my driveway. My mother had an A6 for several years and aside from 1 or 2 recalls on it, it was pretty much problem free. Then again my friend's mother had an A6 which had so many problems that she traded it in after 2 years. I could go on and on with stories of other people I know that have owned Audis. Some had no problems and some had lots of problems.



I would say Audis are no more expensive to maintain than any other German car which is much more expensive than maintaining a Japanese or American car. Of course, if you happen to get an unreliable one then the costs will add up quickly. As already mentioned an extended warranty would probably be a good idea.
 
I had an '02 A4 that was terribly unreliable. It was maintained by my brother from '02-'04ish and he had regular maintanence and service done, no accidents, etc. He had a bunch of problems with it. Then when he handed it down to me, it kept having problems.



Then again, my other brother had an '02 S4 that ran perfectly until he sold it a year ago.
 
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