Hey, I'm a new potential Audi owner. I'm in the process of selling a very highly modified Miata so I can get myself into a luxury/sports sedan. I'm going to look and test drive an 04 A6 2.7T S-Line tomorrow afternoon. It has 60k miles on it and theirasking price is 24.5. I've never owned an Audi and don't really know what the common "gotcha's" are that I should look for when kicking the tires on this A6. I've driven A6's before, but never an S-Line. I've driven a few S4's too. I've liked them all, but the S4's felt a bit cramped, and someone bought the A6 before I could get to it.

Anyway, any advice you guys could give me before heading out to go look at this car? I can talk to you about Miata's all day long, but I'm a greenhorn when it comes to Audi's. Thanks for your help, and hopefully I will be a full time "poster" here in the near future!

 

Dweezil - firstly welcome!

There's a definite difference between the S4 and A6 setup. I've owned both, and prefer the A6 as it has more room - however that's you're call. Coming from a Miata, the S4 may fit the bill for you.

I picked up an '04 A6 S-Line in March this year. 40k miles, loaded with everything except navigation for $26k. This was from an Audi dealer in Chicago, had the existing warranty through 50k or 2008, whichever came first and was certfied. From shopping around earlier this year, your price is a little steep based on mileage. You'll definitely be looking at a timing belt change in the next 15-20k miles.

Do a little shopping around, and check out the sticky post for new A6 2.7T owners on this forum.

BTW - performance is a blast, 265hp stock in this car is a lot of fun. I haven't decided to upgrade yet, but will most likely add an upgrade to the EMC and supporting pipes later this year. Good luck with the search - drop me a note if you need any further info.

 

Hey, thanks for the response. Their STARTING price is $24.5...so I would hope to get them down into the 22's or 23's somewhere. Perhaps, I could strike a deal with the seller of22-23 and some change plus a timing belt change. I do know that it comes with a transferable 100k warranty...so that's a plus. I would need to look at the specifics of the warranty to understand what's covered. From what I understand, this car belonged to a Dr. who did alot of highway driving between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau...so most of the miles are gentle highway miles...supposedly.

How are the turbos in these cars? I've helped friends install turbos in their Miata's and while they were a blast to drive, they seemed to become awfully tempermental. I don't have the patience to constantly keep upwith all of the stuff that goes along with turbo tweeking. So, I'm hoping that since these are factory installed turbos, they're a bit more reliable.

I've driven a few A4's but only one S4. The S4 was a 2005 with a V8...very quick. My problem with it was that I felt really cramped and had a hard time seeing out the back...lots of blind spots. There's another S4 for sale around here that is a 2004 with the twin turbo V6. I haven't driven it yet, but from the outside looking in, it looked as though it would be much easier to see out of than the 2005. I think I like the extra space that the A6 provides anyway. But, it doesn't cost anything to test drive the 2004 S4.

Thanks again for the info.

 

The twin turbos give alot more room for petential tweeking that any naturally aspired engine.

The extended warrenty is definetly a bonus. Before you begin modding, have a close look at the small print.

I'm not particularly tall but having a luxury car without a lot of space didn't seem right. I ended up getting an Audi S6

Have fun whatever you get.

 

They require no tweaking. As long as you take reasonable care of the car - warming it up properly before running it hard or letting it cool down a little after a hard run - the turbos should not be any problem for many miles. Also - make sure you run synthetic oil and change it regularly. Do a search in this forum for more comments.

I posted a question a while back about turbo life and in addition to a lot of warnings about having to replace them someday, a number of respondents said they had over 100k miles without problems. One guy was up to 130k. I have 96k with no problems, and I chipped it about 20k miles ago. I generally drive conservatively when it comes to acceleration, but have a bad habit of driving fast (70-90+ mph) regularly between west MI and Detroit.