Hey everyone! I was recently seriously considering purchasing a 2000 a4 quatro with about 125,000 miles on it. It's the v6 2.8L not the turbo version, 5 speed manual. Test drove it twice car was absolutely amazing ran smooth had a few cosmetic scratches trim wear etc. as any 12 year old car should have.
The reason I am posting is to get some input on these cars, I was raised a toyota guy, love them and their reliability. I know the reliability is not as great with these cars and repairs can get pricey. I am in college don't have a ton of money but loved this car and it was extremly clean mechanically speaking.
I was wondering what kind of issues i could expect for example i know toyota's are notorious for burning oil and having oil leaks. Don't have any experience with german engines. Do you think this car can be my reliable dd for the next atleast 50,000 miles?

 

it will only be as reliable as you maintain i. if you get to problems before they have a chance to make bigger problems. a car with 125k on it should have had most major things go wrong with it by then, but the tbelt will need to get done in another 30 to 40k

 

how comfortable are you taking the car apart? that's really what it boils down to. the parts aren't too much, but the labor definitely is. the alternator is under the car, takes a lot of work, the part's cheap but with labor its close to 500 bucks. the thermostat is on the engine block, requires a basic timing belt service (about 1k at a shop) which is removing the entire front end. when was the timing belt replaced last? definitely have to do that if you don't know, it's like 200 or so in parts, or like i said about 1k at a shop, depending. valve covers leak, vacuum system is a mess sometimes.. wheel bearings blow out a lot, same with control arms and tie rod ends and axles.. really cheap to do it yourself, at a shop not so much.

so basically, if you don't have the time/skill/patience for doing it yourself, nor the money to shell out, it's probably not the car for you.

 

I forgot to mention the timing belt was replaced my guess was it was between 100k and 110k.... I love working on my cars always change the oil faithfully inspect the intake and all wiring, battery, spark plugs, suspension, lights, do almost all the work i can on my own car brakes, tie end rods everything that i have the resources to do i will (I dont like trusting other people taking care of my car). The vacumn system that i don't know much about at all on any car could you give me a little bit more information about that. One thing i really liked was having the serpentine belt, water pump etc right at the front of the engine. I always worked on four bangers where they cram all that on the side of the engine.

 

But I noticed its quite a bit different from what I'm used to but i would be willing to learn the car and take care of most issues.

 

lol its in the front, but there's no room so get used to taking the front end off lol.. i mean, i have a 96 2.8 and i kinda got used to working on it. its a different kind of car than anything i've ever had. i'm used to trucks, had a bronco for 350k miles.. i had this car through college and then some, and its still running. just did the cats, i just hit 125k.. between the past 10k miles i've blown both originals. they get expensive. if you're into doing **** yourself, then you're in luck cause these cars just aren't worth the repair bills.

 

well that kind of sucks but the front end is where i spent most of my time on other cars anyway lol.... A well maintained audi what can i expect to get out of it 200k 250k?

 

Sometime the car may have some little problem,but not big,in this condition we won't want to taken it to garage it is too waste time and money.so we'd have have an auto diagnostic tool to help us to check our car problem and DIY.

 

I'm in luck again! haha... I have a scanguage II I believe this has to be an OBDII port car so I can read the codes right out of my garage. Handy little tool that thing is well worth the 115 or whatever I paid for it. I actually had it hooked up and mounted in my corolla to read gas miliage rpm water temp intake air temp all that good stuff thought it made my little eco car look a bit more classy haha

 

and now that i think of it the little panel in the instrument cluster that i think should display some of that information or some things like it obviously is hard to read the led display on it is all distorted which i was told was notorious in these cars... Is there any way to get a replacement for that I was told they could send it out to be reconstructed but thats a 400 dollar bill not worth it IMO. Any cheaper fix maybe a DIY one preferrably.