I am looking to possibly buy an A6 with 4.2. What am I looking out for? What kind of maint issues and what years are better than others?

 

Are you looking at a C5 or a C6?

 

all kinds of info on them here in AF. search in A6 section with key word 4.2. Everything you ever need to know and more. If still no answers, let me/us know. Only my oppinion and moderate knowledge though

 

C5...will do a search. I will come back if I have any specifics, thanks.

 

I just bought a 2007 A6 4.2 with 60,000 with the cold weather package. One of the things I did was get the VIN # and contact the Audi dealer to get the service history. If a car has been in the shop for the same problem or more times than would seem normal I would stay away. Problematic cars seem to stay that way and vise versa. This has saved me many times. Car faxes are ok but do not depend on them completely. I was one day from buying a Benz and just by chance called a friend of mine that subscribes to the Manheim Report and found out the car had been sold at the auction as a yellow light car. (Meaning accident with significant body damage). The car looked great and had a clean car fax. Unfortunately buying from a dealer does not insure anything. The same friend told me about a car the dealer sold as CPO that was made up of two cars that had been pieced together, again clean car fax. I would look for a lease turn in with all the service records. I picked mine up for less that 25K. Good Luck.

 

Great choice. The v8 looks so much better than the standard one with the S wide body on it! Night and day IMO. Couple things to check for;

When is the timing belt due? If soon, budget another 1000 bucks for that.

Coffee likes to get on the radio if you are careless with the dash cup holder. So check that all the radio and climate buttons work nice.

The digital display on the dash loses lines if you get an unlucky one. There is a thread on the forum about that. Apparently you can ship it out and get it fixed for under 200.

Drive it around and make sure the traction light does not flicker on and off.

Oh and the crap *** secondary air injection...... its crap. Feel free to search for more info on that POS.

Other than that I cant think of anything major... We have had our 4.2 since the summer and I absolutely love it. And although its fairly quick, it definitely needs a chip along with some exhaust to wake it up...