I bought a 96 A4 about a week ago, I have fallen in love with it...

I bought it from a buddy real cheap who got it at auction. I paid only $1500

He said there was an odometer discrepency and it will be listed as 99999999 on the title once I register it.

The Odometer reads 99k miles

You know where I am going with this.. Well I decided to pay for a car fax to see if I can find out what happened. It turns out the car actually has 243k miles!

Now, the car was cheap... It is in excellent condition and runs and drives perfect (almost). I am sure I could take recourse and get out of the car but I want to keep it. It is still cheap secondary transportation, And I love the car.

Am I crazy? I have been a wrench for about 10 yrs at different dealers and local shops so I can do most anything that will need repair. I think I would put a junkyard motor and tranny in the car if it went I like it so much...

There were 3 owners on the car according to carfax, with the second owner having it for 6 years averaging 35,770 miles a year! Wow.

There are no service records with the car, but there are about 18 servicings throughout the carfax history...

I have removed the top cover for the timing belt and it looks fairly new, it has clean markings, the teeth are shaped perfectly, and I see no cracks... I plan to replace it anyhow... Or maybe just wait till it grenades and put that junkyard motor in.

Any advice guys? Help me justify wanting to keep this little gem...

 

I would sue...

 

It must be a 2.8 no way a 1.8t would last that long unless all 3 people really took care of it. You have the most miles on an a4 i've ever seen.

 

Wow that sucks, How do i get my Ecu to say that haha Jk.

 

Yes, 2.8L

I am going to doa good look around and see if I can find evidence of a motor swap... Maybe rebuilt, maybe junk yard swapped already...

There is NO smoke on startup, NO smoke on accell, NO ticks or strange noises of any type.

I am amazed really. It actually gets up and goes pretty damn good as well.

 

Tampering with an odometer is illegal.

 

243k is pretty good im sure you could still stretch another 50k out of it. Dont motor swap why fix something thats not broken?

 

You paid 1500. You get what you pay for............. But that is shady about the mileage discrepency......... But really, If it runs as good as you say it does, 1500 isin't that bad.....

 

ya man these 2.8 12v motors that came in the 96-97 run forever... similar to a honda with the audi badges... the only thing that needs changes on these things are the control arms.

 

I would assume someone changed out the instrument cluster.... Probably not to intentionaly turn back the mileage...

There is no way of getting away with it, its logged in the RMV...

This is the way he got it from auction. My buddy in no way did this.

We picked the car up, I bought it from him, we then got the title and noticed it said 243000 miles... Then I looked up the car fax and it documents the mileage throught the years ro 243000.