First of all, I've been lurking on the forum now for a little while and y'all seem great, so I registered!

Nice to meet you, I'm Ben. Recently turned 17 and this is my second car; the first is visible in a pic or two below. 7MPG plus no heat, no AC, no radio, no wipers made for kind of a crappy driving experience.

Anyway, I bought it a week or two ago. It's got 118k. The dealer I got it from said I could bring it back if it was in eminent danger of catastrophic meltdown or something like that.... so it went off to a mechanic and he came back with kind of a lot of issues.

Here's the list of items w/ prices:

CV boot -- $350
Tune up (new plugs, filters, etc) -- $300
Catalytic converter -- $1600
Timing chain, water pump, valve cover gasket, new front seals, etc -- $2400
Engine mount leaking hydraulic fluid replacement -- $1800?

I'd probably better explain some of this. Firstly, we have no idea if the belt has been changed or not. It does seem to have a couple newer non-timing belts and a new water pump. The timing belt looks okay from the little piece we could see. Seems like a bad idea to just not replace it though... and the little teeny oil leak from the seals and valve cover gaskets is actually there, so the engine would be worked on anyway.

As for the cat -- it tripped the check engine light when the mechanic was test-driving it. I would estimate 200-250 miles after the car was purchased. He said that it was working slowly and just took a while to warm up but it would fail inspection.

And the engine mount: It shakes at lights like it's a much more ragged car. (Like the Lincoln I have!) I don't care if it's $1800 to fix; the structure isn't compromised.

So... I called the place I bought it from and they said they would do the cat for free, and the mechanic they use could do the timing/gaskets/pump/seals for $1200.

Up to this point, I have a couple questions:
-- Should I be worrying about the timing belt and related things?
-- Are the turbos usually very loud? I had the mechanic check them and he said they were fine. I only have dad's 2006 Saab 9-3 Aero to compare to... it just seems like the whine is way louder.
-- I like to tinker with things despite my lack of mechanical fortitude. At some point I'd like to do wheels and possibly and ECU? Well... putting 14psi through the turbos is probably going to make them fail quickly, right?

My aim for this whole thing is to make any mods or upgrades Mom-proof. She chipped in some because of grades, etc with the understanding that, while I would use it most of the time, she would take it every once in a while to meet clients in Raleigh or stuff like that. She gets very nitpicky about random things and I want to be able to keep any go-fast/look-good additions out of her hair.

Sorry this is so long-winded. On to the pics and I genuinely appreciate any help y'all have!

 

So your mech says over $6K of repairs (some of which are fairly serious). Is the dealership talking about doing everything for $1200? If so I would have them do it. How much did you pay for the car? You can do the timing belt, seals, gaskets yourself for a total of $400, the plugs/tune up for say another $100, the motor mount for about $150 max, and the cat for about $400 max. Not sure how bad the CV's or the cat are to do on the car but I've done the others in the past 2 weeks on my car. Just takes a little time and know how to get it done but it will save you a ton in labor costs. The timing belt should be changed unless you know 100% when it was done.

 

Thanks for your reply! He's not really MY mechanic. I just went to him based on hearing good things from people I know who own Audis. Dealership, for $1200, will have cat, timing belt, water pump, gaskets, seals done. No motor mount and I think no CV.

I don't think it'd be very practical for me to do it myself. Likely, I would mess something very difficult to fix up and then my mom would kill me. Seems like pretty much all you have to do is take everything off the front down to the radiator and then fiddle with the belt and tensioner, but my mechanical ability is somewhere around fixing a carburetor. Don't get me wrong... I would love to do it myself but I just don't think it's a good idea.

As for the motor mount -- I was told that the motor would have to be pulled. If so, you'd need some sort of an engine hoist, which I don't have... the $1800 is way way worse than the somewhat shuddering idle.

BTW -- paid $6200 for the car.

 

That's still a fairly good price to have all that done from what I've read here. The tune up might help with the rough idling a bit. I'm not sure how bad the mounts (besides the front one) are to do (might be able to just use a jack to lift the motor from below) but I would think an independent shop could do it considerably cheaper than $1800. Same with the CV but it won't be a lot cheaper.

 

I can't answer all your questions, but I just had my indie shop replace my timing belt (which included all rollers, tensioners, belts, WP, t-stat, and fluid) for $892. Parts were $424 and there was 6 hours labor. This is the second TB job that he did on my A6. I would not suggest a TB change as your first repair in an Audi unless you have some decent skills and experience in automotive work. You can easily ruin your engine.

I had both outer axle boots replaced by the same shop: $300. Only one was leaking but it made sense to replace both since they had 150k miles on them. Here'a another datapoint for you: all four rotors (Centric premium) with ceramic pads, about $900-1000.

$300 may be appropriate for oil (7.5 qts of Mobil1 0W-40) and filter, air filter, cabin filter, fuel filter and plugs. If you are a little handy you can probably do all of these for about half the cost (parts only).

I'd question whether the cat problem is a sensor or the catalytic converters themselves. If both converters are bad, you are probably looking at $1500-2000 at a dealer. There are aftermarket converters that supposedly bolt in, but you need to do some google searches.

The quote for the engine mounts just seems awfully high, but I've never had mine done and so have no comparison.

I would forget about chipping (boost) for now and get the car completely road worthy and reliable. You'll find that while the regular maintenance is a little more expensive for these cars, if you fail to do it and things end up breaking, the repairs are a lot more expensive. Quattro and turbo engines are just not cheap. As far as turbo noise, I have always heard a slight whine which is more noticeable when I shut off the car and they wind down. I would be more concerned with oil leakage from around the turbos themselves which could be a sign of failing turbos. Those will set up back about $2-3k.