Hi,
My name is Terry. I recently got my civic totalled by an old lady who rear ended me. Now, I am on a market for a new car. I was thinking about getting an96+ A4 1.8T Quattro. I was wondering if you can tell methereliability and maintance on this cars. I am a college student so I barely have any money in my pocket.
I work on my civic at home and I was wondering if the A4 are easy to work on? DIY?

Thanks,
Terry

 

This is only my opinion so take it with a grain of salt. As far as reliability and repair the Audi can be very expensive. Buying parts for an Audi is going to be much more expensive than your honda every was. The cars can be very reliable if they have a history of being taken care of-but a box full of reciepts from a previous owner doesn't necessarily mean it was taken care of either. I think like most cars you can do most repairs by yourself, although you should have a vag tool to read codes, or at least a friend that has one.

I really like my car and most people who've owned them do which means when one it for sale it probably needed maintainence or serious repair and they decided it was easier to buy a new one. Best person to buy one from is a married couple over 50 that just likes to buy new cars every few years. As for an A4 shoot for 99.5 and newer, there were a few body style changes that make them more desirable.

Remember these are just my opinions. Good luck.

 

If you can find a good one, with all maintenance records and pertinent maintenance performed, you'll be in good shape. But we're talking about a 10 year old car and one that really does require significant upkeep. Repairs are more expensive and probably even more frequent than on other cars. I love my A4, but I got a great deal and I've only had to do minor things. I would feel differently if I had to drop $1000 on some unexpected repair which is the case with a lot of new B5 owners. Anyway, there's been a lot of discussion on this topic...do a search because there are plenty of people with more valuable insight on the subject.