I am halfway through my time in college and I am looking to buy a car. I have around $6k to spend and then another $1.5k in the bank if anything goes wrong. I will be using the car to commute to school and to up to the mountains to ski. I also plan on putting racks on top of the car to transport some surfboards at some point as well. I don't plan on doing any mods to the car in the near future so I think a v6 would be right for me. I may do some stuff to the body but nothing to the engine.

I really like the look of the A4. I have found a 1999 2.8L V6 manual in my price range with 120k miles. Timing belt was replaced at 100k and the owner said the clutch was fine. Single owner by the way.

I have read around the forum and read the newbie guide as well. The car appears to be in good condition so I don't think it will need any immediate work. I have heard a lot of horror stories on Audi's as well. The owner of this particular car said there haven't been any major problems though.

Couple of questions I have. On average, how much do you guys spend a year on simply maintaining the car? As I said I am in college but I do have a job. My income isn't great and most of it will go straight to insurance, gas and paying off the car. I have seen these cars go to 200k though so if I bought it I'd most like run it to the ground.
Anther problem I have seen with older Audi's is the ABS module failing. Could the module fail at anytime? If a car has run for 10 years and hasn't failed yet, could it still fail?

Thanks for your time