Hi guys

Just bought my 1st audi- its an a6 4.2 quattro avant estate

On a v reg with 63000 on the clock, i thought i grabbed myself a real bargin @ £6900 ......................... however, it appears i didnt grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

I had a test drive and everything seemed ok appart from the fact that the dashboard was not working. This rang warning bells, but the seller told me that it was working earlier on a previous test drive and that its probably a blown fuse. Mechanicly it all felt fine and i knew that the 4.2 was quite a rarity and that the normal asking price was around £10k for the year and milage, so i was naturaly very interested at a £3k saving

I rang a friend who runs a tractor repair center and asked him about the dashboard and he said it could well be a fuse, a disconected lead (kettle plug) or a magor eeprom fault, but with a £3k saving i should risk the deal - so i did ................ and saved myself a further £100 to boot hehehe

I fell ill the next day with the dreaded flu - long story short, i finaly was disscharged from hospital after a chest infection turned in to pneumonia and as such hadnt even driven the car for 4 weeks after the deal.

Took the car to a local garage where they gave it a service and PLUGGED in the dashboard - then the fun began!!

Turns out....................................that when the car is doing up to 20 mph (ish) the dashboard reads 0 mph - then for every 1 mph there after it reads 1 mph ( so, 20 mph = 0 mph reading, 40 mph = 20 (ish)mph reading 40 mph = 20 (ish) mph and im sure you get the picture now lol) - to top this off, the gearbox seems extreamly retarded in auto and the kickdown is like driving a moddified turbo car in the wrong gear................. foot down and waiting for the turbo to spool.......................and waiting........................and waiting......................and then were off!! yet in tiptronic the gearbox works fine with oodles of power on tap.

My l;ocal garage are miffed (but to be fair, their an agricultural garage lol) and i cant afford to go to audi as they would probably charge me £1k just to TRY and find faults!!

I tried to contact the seller but he has long gone and he wasnt even the previous owner of the vehical!! had a word with the police and it isnt stolen and no outstanding finance (which is good) and even tried to trace the true last owner to see if they had the same issues,but to no luck grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

With the xception of the the speedo, the rest of the dash seems to be working ok (not sure about rev counter) which would make me believe its a gearbox problem, as correct me if im wrong, but doesnt the dashboard take its speed readings from the gearbox sensor? would this mean its a gearbox control switch problem?

Im confussed and skint, but apart from this pretty major problem, i love the car, its just so sexy looking and the flared arches are a dream

I was going to buy an e55 for £10k but when i saw this for £7k i just knew there was nochoice - hopefully it was the right one!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP

Jason

nb: fantastic site