I am looking at a 1996 Audi A6 with around 250K miles on the car. I don;t know much about Audis so who better to ask but Audi fans
What is typical life span of one of these guys? the car is super clean and looks like it has been taken well care of. The price is $2300, a good bit under kbb value. The current owner has no real history on the timing belt bening changed either. So can i get some opinions on this car?
thanks

 

250K seems like quite a few too many miles to be paying $2300 for.

 

Yeah i thought so to. I ran it through kbb.com with the mileage and it says book value is around $3700 !

 

That's a lot of miles and components will be failing...it's a fact of life. How deep are your pockets? The timing belt should have been done every 80k, so at least 3 times. If this is the original transmission and quattro system, it may look/sound fine but if it fails due to wear/age, it will be expensive to repair. This is the classic "cost of acquisition" vs "cost of ownership" paradox. Cheap to get in. Maybe not so cheap to keep.

 

KBB or any other book is a big joke when it comes to old Audis. 250K and no history means big dollars in the near future or maybe right now. $2000 max but more likely $1500 and plan on spending another $1500 soon. Almost forgot the $1500 you spend after getting the vehicle is if you do most of the work yourself. If you need a mechanic plan on double or tripple it.

 

Gotcha thanks for the info. I know it has some maintence records such as oil changes and such i know its on its 3rd owner . But I dont know about the timing belt changes. I havent seen the car yet. Just wanted to get input on Audifanatics before looking at it. Sounds like it might be more trouble than its worth.
Thanks

 

It might be, then again it might not be. Its a gamble, but that's why you would be paying a low price. Take it to a good mechanic who can check it over closely. If it checks out good, it will like any other Audi - nice car but expensive to maintain.

Bob