I am interested in purchasing an Audi A6 not the quattro. IT has 87 thousand miles on it and has only had two owners. If anyone could help me out and give me some of the common problems that this model care has encountered. Whether it is reliable, what i should have checked if i take it to a mechanic and whether the price is a fair value and what price would be better. I have included the link of the ad from craigslist.

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/1717077831.html

any help would be greatly appreciated thanks.

 

Hi,
It is a C5, the 98 -04 body shape, there was still some C4 shape A6's being sold in 98 so just letting you know.

I only just bought an A6, so I'm no expert, but first question to the seller would be 'is the timing belt done recently'
If you are not a DIY guy, then it's a 1500 - 2000 bucks job. and it is due.

Service history? done by a main dealer or indipendant?
Check engine light? Cat converters replaced?

Do you know a mechanic? it may be worth paying to have it inspected to see what stored codes are in the ECM.

A few things to go at in your first communications with the seller.

 

Umm, the symphony radio in the picture means that it has to be a 2000 or 2001, so.....? This is starting to sound fishy. I would ask many many many questions before throwing down the money.

 

Good catch, I never would have noticed that. They could have done the double din upgrade but I doubt it. I agree, it's a little suspicious, and verify the timing belt as already mentioned.

 

its better to be sure first if the parts are okay.. ask which audi a6 parts were recently replaced and so on and so forth. If you know a mechanic then let him check if it is really in good condition.

 

Sedans were C5 Avants were C4

Start with the basics -- get the vin number and decode it to find the year then do a carfax..

I agree it sounds fishy unless the guy is a complete dweeb, but I doubt that because the car looks to be on a lot.

 

I asked him about the timing belt and I believe he said that it was not yet done and didnt need to be done until 100,000 miles. If i do decide to go forward i am going to take it to an audi dealer and have as much checked out as possible. The thing that confused me is that it looks like it has a decal on the front grill which i think would make it a quattro unless the guy just added the decal to make it look nice. He said it wasn't a quattro though. Any help on that? For sure it is a newer model than 98.

thanks for all the help

 

Make sure it's not a CVT transmission, I know newer C5's that were FWD were a CVT but I'm not sure about the 2.8. If it's a CVT, don't waste your money on the car.

Why don't you or he know what year the car is?

Somebody at some point in time just added the quattro badge.

 

I have not yet traveled down to see it. In another post someone mentioned that it had to be a 2000 or 2001. I don't know really anything about Audi so I am trusting what I hear from people on this site. Even if I call the guy I don't think he would have the answer he doesn't seem to know a whole lot about the car himself. I think what I really need to do is just take it to an Audi dealership and get it checked out.

 

Here's how i knew/thought that it was a 2000/1, it's all about the radio: http://www.ibiblio.org/tkan/audi/radios/radios.html

Also, i've been to a few used car dealerships where they actually have no idea whether an Audi is AWD or FWD, completely ignoring the blatant quattro badge because they seriously don't know what it means (yes, these guys were pretty stupid, and no i didn't get anything from them). It's not that hard, just look under the rear and look to see drive shafts. I really wouldn't be surprised if they just don't know what they're talking about. One quattro badge that is a good bit harder to fake is the one inside on the passenger-side dash panel (this isn't the right year/car/color, but it is the right location: http://forums.audiworld.com/picture....ctureid=203043 ), if they have this badge there's a very good chance it's a real quattro. Again, I think that the car is fine but the guy just has no clue what's going on.

Just do us a favor and don't buy it until you report back on the details of it. And once all is said and done, try to get it for $4000-4500 to give you a little headroom for replacing the timing belt. And FYI, it needs to be done NOW, not at 100K; obviously this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, so just listen to us. Anything past 80K miles is really just a crap shoot at destroying your entire engine. I speak of this first hand, I had to get an entire engine swap because of a bad timing belt tensioner; $4k later, i have my car working nicely again :-/