Im about to be trading for this car and have a few questions.

1. Owners says transmission is shot cause it was towed on a tow dolly. He has replacement transmission that comes with it.
Does this sound right?

2. Car has 195,xxx miles but runs excellent. With this many miles what should i be concerned about and is the engine prone to any kind of failures at this mileage.

3. Last one.. How difficult is it to change this transmission? I've been working on imports my whole life but never German and never awd.

Any help would be awesome

 

After reading its a 99.5 car and the trans is the tiptronic? ( Shifter buttons on steering wheel)
All i know is its a form of auto ;p

 

I'm a 5 speed guy so I can't help you about the transmission, the only thing is since it's awd it has 3 "driveshafts" other then that it should be (somebody please correct me) the same as any other car besides the fact it's an Audi and everything is hard to do

As far as the miles, as long as the engine has been taken care of with regular full synthetic oil changes it should be fine. My 1.8t has 192k on it and still running really strong. Just realize maintance and labor is alot more expensive then most cars

 

I do all maintenance myself and my labor is free .

But no i highly doubt its had synthetic oil. Should I pop the valvecover off and look for sludge? (I read that May be a problem on the 1.8s)

 

But the car is amazingly clean for its age. So it may have been kept up.

 

Timing belt probably needs changed

 

Check for front end clunks to see if the control arms are good. Sludge could be a problem so its nice to have documented oil changes (but who does that?). Tip transmissions arent as reliable as the 5 speeds but I dont know a whole lot about them.

And +1 on the T-Belt, it should be getting its 3rd T-belt.

 

My Audi's previous owner did that . I literally have 3 paper grocery bags filled with records, everything from an oil change to a new spark plug to a new clutch. It's freakin amazing.

But anyways back on topic, sludge is a huge issue on 90's 1.8t. Pop the valve cover and take a look. Also see how big the oil filter is, it should look bigger then just about an other oil filter you've ever seen and should say Mann on it. Otherwise I the guy used conventional oil without that filter, I personally wouldn't touch it. The oil pan is probably filled with sludge

 

Is it much of a pain to take the pan off and clean it up assuming there might be sludge? Then from that point forward just change up to synthetic with the proper filter?

I mean im trading a 1986 Toyota Mr2 for it that i have virtually nothing in but my own labor.

 

I think i would be a fool not to take it if only to swap the new trans he bought in and immediately resell it.