Hey everyone,
I'm looking at buying a '99 A4 2.8 quattro 5spd with 120k miles. I checked it out at the dealership yesterday and overall it looks great, but there are a few odd things about it. Firstly, they are only asking $5995 for it, and the Kelly Blue Book value is over $11k. Secondly, it's missing a muffler. There's no rust anywhere on the car, but the muffler just wasn't there. Could be the car bottomed out, I don't know. Also, they don't know if and when the timing belt was serviced. I searched and I think it said the interval was every 60-70k miles so I'm assuming it must've been done once already and will need to be done again very soon. Aside from that, the car is stock mechanically but has a two-tone paint job (stock silver bottom with a dark grey/graphite top separated by a red stripe-looks professionally done), aftermarket projector headlights, and 18" wheels, and most likely has lowering springs. I haven't driven it yet but I plan to when I go back, obviously. Is there anything I should watch out for besides what I mentioned? It seems too good a price to be true.

 

Never assume there is a service done unless there is documentation. I bet it had an after market muffler on, and it sounds like this was a modded car. Thats probably why it's relatively cheap. Dealers don't like having modified cars n their lot. If you get it, do the timing belt ASAP.

 

No, there just wasn't a muffler. I looked under the car and the exhaust ended right before where the muffler would be. I thought it had an aftermarket one on until I looked under the car, because it seemed loud.

 

Uh, ok, the dealer might've cut it off because it looked like ***

 

That's highly doubtful. In fact, that doesn't make any sense. We're talking about an inner-city car dealership, a small outfit, not a large well-to-do dealership that prides itself on customer service and whatnot. Regardless, I still think the timing belt will need to be serviced right away so I should probably make arrangements to have that done after getting the car and have it thouroughly inspected, possibly by a technician at an Audi dealership.

 

The paint job sounds a bit unusual, and it was modded and probably beaten to death.

I vote - look for a clean private sale car!

 

It could also be that they just want to move it, and got it at a good enough price/trade payout that they can sell it that way. Did you find out also if it's being sold FOR someone? That's possible, especially since it's a small outfit. I only paid $5000 for my 99 2.8Q, and that was because (long story short) the owner had a new car on the way, and an unforeseen expense with the Audi (timing service) meant that he had to take money from what he had for the new car, to pay to get the Audi fixed. He had to dump the car ASAP because his new one was arriving that week. I had already driven it and the car was excellent (that didn't change by the way). He just had no choice but to eat the excess that he could've gotten for it - no other choice, and it worked in my favor

 

It's possible, I'm not sure. I might go back next week. I looked at a '98 1.8T with all the service records and lower mileage, yada yada but for $10k I wouldn't be able to afford payments and car insurance on it every month, so the 2.8 for $6k looks appealing, aside from the fact that it'll most likely need a timing belt service immediately. Have any of you owned a japanese car and can compare how expensive the repairs are relative to the japanese car? I'm used to picking up parts for my Toyota MR2 and Mazda RX-7, and the prices are high but would Audi parts generally be more expensive?