New owner
 

Hey everyone, new to the forums and audis.

I just bought a 2000 a6 2.7l quattro with 171000 miles on it. The guy that had it before me replaced quite a bit but not the timing belt. I figure it has been replaced at least once before, but no guarantees. How much should I worry?
I am a college student just looking for it to last me until i graduate, 2 years. I have owned a few mustangs and am going to be a mechanical engineer so I know a fair amount of stuff but not so much with german engineering and what not. Thanks. Oh I plan to go through the sticky about new owners also.

ALSO the display in the middle of the console doesnt work, I think its supposed to say temp outside, mpg and what not. It works like half way? its like dar but if i get at a certain angle I can see some stuff.. weird. any help would be great thanks

worry. Maybe the 1st time it was changed at 80k, and now it's due again having 90k on it. Maybe the 1st time was at 80k, the second at 160k, who knows. Change the belt, unless you can determine when the 1st belt was changed. Could have been at the original Audi recommendation of 105k.

The display is on? or completely off? If off, press the button on the bottom of the wiper stalk to turn it on/off. If it just is missing lots of rows of pixels, get used to it.

Welcome to the forums.

Well the display will sometime show some rows when first turned on, but when the car gets warmed up some turn dark.

How many hours would a belt take? Id do the work myself.

"They" say on average an experienced mechanic can have the timing belt changed in about six hours.

I just did mine and I am far from an experienced mechanic, but I do have some experience with turning wrenches. I figure it took me about 20 hours over the span of about a week. Keep in mind that I also had to figure out my own work arounds for some the "special" tools that I didn't have and I had to take it back apart a couple of times to fix my mistakes.

Having done mine, I figure if I had to do it again it would take ME between six and eight hours to do it again knowing what I know now that I didn't know when I started.

about the display, there are a ton of threads on here about that problem. It has to do with the ribbon cable connecting hte display to the board.

welcome to the land of pain, suffering, and empty wallet.

Get the whole timing belt kit and rent the tools from someone like Blauparts.
If you can't determine that the TB was done within the last few miles --Do it immediatly or you could be headed for a major expense!

Hav efun fixing the other items...

Thanks ya'll!! I'll most likely order from Blauparts and rent the tools... seems the easiest way. Anyone know about a leaky o-ring in the Driver side turbo it drips a little oil. Hard fix? or simply take it off and put new one on?