wow, the 99 A4's are getting terrible terrible reliability reviews. i'm scared that if i buy one i'm going to keep dumping money into fixing it. should i believe the reviews, or should i trust the car? it looks as if it has been taken care of and it test drove real solid.

 

The key to a car's reliability is the maintenance history. My A4 has a history since new, but a few minor maintenance items were neglected. It's always good to include records with a wehicle.

On the other hand I bought my previous car (Ford Taurus SHO) at 89k with no service history and ran it up until 147k without any real problems. Then again, I maintaned the car very well.

Be advised with any used car (without a service history) you'll probably put $500-$1000 in undone maintenance within the first and second year.

 

He's right. As long as your car was taken care of by the previous owners, you shouldn't have any problems... My A4 was very well maintained, and I've had little problems with it.

If you're looking for reliability, regardless of previous maitenance... Buy a Honda. When I got my Civic (The drag car now), it had 298,000, and the engine still ran great, perfect compression across the board, it was perfect, even after 298,000 Miles. Another good thing about Honda engines, is they can take whatever you through at them. I have friends that have swapped Civics, that beat the living HELL out of their cars, I'm talking turning them to 10,000RPM every shift, and killing it everywhere, and the cars have been running since highschool... I'd buy a Honda as a daily driver, and buy the A4 as the pimp car... Best of both worlds, reliability and fuel economy, and then you have the pimp factor... That's just me though, I like having multiple cars, some people can't stand it.

 

I got my 97 A4 a year ago with 110k on it, I'm up to 127k now and I've put less than $500 into non-normal maintenance (brake pads, etc), not including oil changes and tune ups.

 

so if the records are good then i should be safe? i am real **** about maintaining my cars so i will keep it up for sure. what should i look for in the carfax report?
thanks

 

As far as carfax goes, just make sure it has ZERO collisions.

Does CarFax show the maintenance history while under warranty? If so, make sure the timing belt has been replaced, because that's what most Audi owners find to be the royal pain in the *** at about 40-60k- so if the prev owner put that off or whatever, you'll have some problems down the road with that.

 

the dealer im buying the car from is actually going to rowk that into the deal. he said they would have it changed for me.

 

Carfax isn't the catch all for mileage or collisions. There are real easy ways to get around those that I won't get into here.