Hi!

A couple days ago, I've purchased a 2001 A8. The car has 91k miles on it and looks and drives good (compared with a Toyota Avalon and Mercedes ML430). The lady who sold me the car did not have any service records regarding a recent timing belt/water pump change and her dad -who originally owned the car- passed away some time ago. So, is there a way to understand whether or not they have been changed by looking at a sticker inside the engine? If not, what would be my best course of action?

Also, I've got an estimate of $350 for rear brakes (pad+rotors, including labor). Since I am fairly new to Audi, is this a good price or should I look for another Audi mechanic? I live in Maine and welcome any suggestions.

Thanks a lot!

 

Go down to the nearest Audi Dealer and have them pull a record sheet off of the vin number. If the old owner did it through the dealer they will have records.

As for the rear brakes; I have not had mine done so if anyone has a suggestion on this?

 

I've always done my own brakes, but $350 doesn't sound like a bad price for parts and labor. I'd guess at least 200 of that is just parts.

 

You could DIY your brakes and save about $100+. Or, if $$ isn't a concern, this is about normal for a Stealarship quote. Inde shop'll come in $50. - $75. less, give or take.

 

For your D3, the rear brake pads always wear the inside pads faster than the outer pads, plus yours has an electronic e brake which makes it more expensive for labor. On your model every 40k the rears should be changed, every 50k for the fronts.

To the OP, what mileage do you curently have on the car?

 

It currently has 92k miles on it. Thanks,

 

Thats right about the time when the timing belt needs to be done, its a 50/50 chance it hasn't been done. If you don't know how to check a timing belt, have a euro mechanic pop the cover and inspect it for you, it should be immediately appearent to him. If it looks like the belt hasn't been done, then have them change the belt, water pump, thermostat, rollers and tensioners.

 

I dropped my car to the mechanic today. He called me and said the timing belt has never been changed. Damn! It might be expensive after what I read here.

If you remember from my other post, the park sensors were not functioning properly. The mechanic looked at it via vag com and said the rear left sensor is faulty. He took the bumper out, switched the left sensor with the right one. Then it said rear right sensor is faulty. So the mechanic concluded that one sensor is faulty and needs to be replaced. $134 for the sensor and 1 hr of labor. I asked if it is possible to eliminate that sensor at all and leave the others as is. He said not possible. It did not sound realistic. How can it not be an option? I thought all the remaining sensors might work fine if you cut the power going to the faulty sensor but maybe that's because I don't know anything about it.

Thanks.

 

No, unfortunately most systems that use several sensors will deactivate if there is a problem with one of them. Its more of a saftey thing for audi, lets say you back into something and you have one bad sensor, but the system still works with the other 3 sensors. Who is to say that it isn't audi's fault? See what i mean? If the parktronics is deactivated due to a fault code, backing into something would be your fault, instead of a lawsuit towards audi.