I need A4 Purchasing advice
 

Until recently I have always been a general motors guy. And before any of you laugh, lets just say I was raised by a GM mechanic and i've spent enough time and money fixing and rebuilding gm products that I was just fed up. I knew I was going foreign, but i decided german was my best bet after some long research. Either way I have found a 1997 A4 FWD with the 1.8L turbo. It has 100k miles on it. I was just looking for some opinions on this certain vehicle and anything I should know. I am a mechanic by hobby so most repairs are not an issue. I am looking for a gas saving, reliable, and safe vehicle to use as a daily driver instead of my truck. Any info would be helpful. Thanks!

Where are you from? If you get a lot of snow in the winter and plan on driving the Audi, get quattro awd. It can literally save your life. If you are more south and don't really get snow, go for it. Just know audi's are high maitenance and plan on spending a lot of money keeping this car running well. If the timing belt hasn't been changed yet, get it done. I'm pretty sure it's recommended 80k miles that it's supposed to be swapped. Run it on premium 91 octane. Don't trust dealerships when you have to get something repaired. They'll charge you an arm and a leg and might not even get the job done. Just browse through the forums and check out some threads about repair. It will let you know what your are in for. Don't get me wrong, they are great vehicles, they are just money whores.

Hold out for QUATTRO, you won't regret it, but you will regret the FWD sooner than you think...

BTW, check out the FAQ sticky on the top of the B5 section with so much info. It's a little overwhelming at first, but dive in, learn what you can, then make an educated decision...

hey brad... i ran my fwd for almost a year before i sold it due to nagging gf syndrome... and the fact both cv were bad and the fuel pump issue lol.. but i loved that car

but on a serious note... if weather is a concern where u live then wait for the quattro... if you live in sunny california like me then go for it... fwd should be ok, unless u go to mountains and shred alot lol

how much are they asking for the car if u dont mind me asking?? and do they have any receipts or anything for recent repairs?? mainly timing belt and tensioner and such?

Read the newbie guide! Great source of info. I'd post a link but I'm mobile and am too lazy to go get it :p

Audis definitely look cool and people can't believe that my B5 A4 is a 1999 (actually 99.5) they always think its much newer because of the looks and maybe because Audi seems to update their styling rather than totally change it as they bring in new model designs. Get used to doing some maintenance though! I guess that's why I wonder how you came to the conclusion that "going foreign" for you would be a German car? This is my first Audi, but from everything I have read about reliability of various cars tells me that German cars are not particularly reliable and are generally quite expensive to fix. The Japanese still seem to make the most reliable cars, I've owned 2 Acuras and a Honda and found them to be quite trouble free, provided that you keep up on the basic maintenance. (which is true for ANY car!) American cars may not be as reliable as Japanese cars, but the parts usually aren't too expensive when something does go wrong.

I'd also say to check out the stickys here, they will tell you what often goes wrong with these cars. I bought mine with about 112K on it and everything worked fine, except for the gas gauge. Within a couple of months, I started hearing a loud roar from the back passenger side, I had a bad wheel bearing-a very common issue on these cars. Got that fixed and within a month, had the same noise coming from the rear driver's side! The car has had other issues as well, but I won't bore you with the details, they are all covered in the stickys, all common B5 problems.

I go back and forth with loving and hating my B5, nothings gone wrong lately, so I guess I like it again. Then I go here on the forum and read about all of the stuff that goes wrong with everyone else's Audi and I wonder when it will happen to me! (like it sounds as if just about everyone has had sunroof trouble-I haven't yet, but every time I open it, I wonder if it will close!) For about $4-5 grand you won't find too many cars out there that look as good and get the looks it does, but be prepared to either fix stuff yourself or pay to get it fixed, cause its gonna happen!

Welcome from another GM guy. I was also raised on GM cars and trucks. From Pontiacs, Cadies, Chevy 2 wheel and 4x4 trucks, Oldsmobile and a few Saturns. You name it I've wrenched on it. I bought my B5 Audi in October of 2010 and I love it. The learning curve shouldn't be that hard for maintenance, just learning all the little particulars about the car is the hard part. Stick to the forum for DIY's and general info. I would go with the Quattro if you live in area that has a annual snow fall, other than that, the FWD should be fine. Go buy yourself a good quality set of metric wrenches and sockets. Good luck.:)

Thanks
 

I appreciate everyone's advice. I do live in an area with a huge snowfall every year (Chicago) but I snow plow and I will be driving my Chevy 2500HD during the winter months. I was just looking to get into a gas saving car that is fairly reliable and looks nice. Thanks again for all of the advice.

UPDATE: I finally got my car washed today, it has been really dirty for a while and I just hadn't gotten around to getting it washed for a while. When I came home, my new neighbor was outside, I just moved in a couple weeks ago. He's a real nice guy and he said "hey you finally got your car washed!" then he said, "I love Audis, what year is yours?" When I told him it was a 1999, his mouth dropped open, he (like a lot of people) thought it was much newer than that! That's the part I like about this car, it looks great and for the money, you can't find many cars that will get the looks and appreciation that it does.

That having been said, I'd say again to read the stickys (mainly the faq) about what can and usually does go wrong on B5's. Like with buying any older car, if you can get at least some maintenance history, its a real plus. If you can find one that has been well-maintained, even if you have to pay a little more, you'll probably end up ahead in the end, its easy to drop $1000 on these cars if a few things go wrong.