what is like an average cost of A4 maintenace, or say mechanical bills. You guys were mentioniong high bills can sneak up on you, like what price range are we talking about?

 

It just depends on what kind of maintenance we are talking about. I doubt there is an accurate average cost of repairs for the A4 owner. I probably spent 1200 last year on repairs. (timing belt change/water pump, control arms, oil changes, filters). All in all it's probably twice as expensive as owning a Honda. But twice as rewarding.

 

Expect to drop at least $90 everytime you take it to the dealer. I spent $2500 so far after owning the car for 6 months. The repairs were never covered under warranty and I did not buy an extended for $5000. I am still far ahead right now and Jestnomen was right about the rewarding part of owning an Audi.

 

dudley, sounds like it's time to start doign your own maintenance.

 

I am doing my own maintenance now. I spent $1500 CDN for the timing belt and water pump. I got CLConversion to hook me up where he works and I got a great deal in the parts and the labour was the standard.
The rest of the money I spent on tires, brake rotors, pads and tranny seals. All the labours was done by me. Oh yeah, I forgot the Bentley and the Ross tech software. There you go, $2500 CDN total overall spending.
I had vacuum leaks a month or so ago and it cost me $26 CDN. Thanks to the software and manual, I did the labour myself.

 

depends what u need done. so for i spend about umm $90ish for oil, oil filter and new headlights. I still got a year warranty so if something goes wrong its on the dealers bill

 

so can i expect random parts to break? would you say that if i kept on the scheduled maintenance, i would be alright

 

I woulnt really say random parts break. There are particulars that break/wear on the A4. for instance you can almost bank on the fact that the control arms will start to squeek around 50-70k miles. You can bet that you had better change the timing belt and water pump around 70k miles. Audi's don't have a record for breaking hard and leaving their passengers stranded someplace. They tend to have things like electrical gremlins or vacuum leaks. These things have so many electronics on them its amazing.

If you want to see my maintenance record since October of 2003 click here.

 

Preventative maintenance is the best way to keep major repairs to a minimum. Jest is right, the more you can learn how to do yourself the better off you'll be. The first time I had the timing belt and water pump done it cost me a bundle, the second time around I just paid for parts and that cost me about a third as much as the first time around. Your maintenance costs will depend on how much you do yourself and how much you drive. If you check the Audi USA site and check your particular model, it'll tell you what should be done at what interval. Hope this helps.