Hey guys, I am a complete n00b to these cars and Audi's in general and am just looking for a little heads up as far as maint. and reliability goes.

I've spent the past couple days looking around at the cars and it seems like parts are reasonably priced but as I have never actually worked on one of these, just curious what the worst parts about working on one can be.

Also, I am curious about reliability and longevity of some of the parts on these cars. I will probably be picking one up with close to 100k miles on it, and was thinking of doing some light modification to get the power up closer to the 200 mark. Specifically since I will be doing a lot of driving (I commute 100 miles per day for work) I want an automatic, but if I start adding a little power, I do not want to compromise the integrity of the auto trans in the car. Is the trans in this car something to really worry about? Also, with the 1.8t which is what I will probably be looking to pick up, what can they take power wise stock?

I'll do some real searching tonight, I just found this forum this morning and I am out the door in about 2 minutes now, but wanted to post something up and see if I could get pointed in a decent direction tonight.

Thanks for your help guys!

Phil

 

Your first stop should be the FAQ at the top of the forum - it'll give you the ABCs of A4 ownership, and will help you develop more pointed questions specific to your needs. If you're doing a lot of commuting I'd get a 2.8 though - they're 193hp to start with and are far less labor-intensive than a 1.8T, which need a chip and diverted valve (a few hundred up to $6-700 depending on manufacturer) to get to the stock power level of the 2.8.

 

Yeah, I had bookmarked the FAQ's to read when I got home tonight. I will look more into it. I wouldn't mind the V6, the fuel economy actually seems fairly similar between the 1.8T and the 2.8 according to some of the spec sheets I found, thanks for the response!

 

The only thing that's annoying about working on these cars is that you have to put it in the audi service position to get to stuff on the front of the engine, but it only take about 5 min and is better than fighting with it, and the thermostatic fan is a pain on the 5 valves engines 1.8 or 2.8, the old 12 valve isn't bad.

 

Service position is far superior to actually taking everything apart.

 

Very honestly, I just watched a quick video on youtube to see what "service position" meant... Being an auto body tech, I can't tell you how many of these I have actually taken the front (and rear for that matter) bumpers off. Doesnt seem like going the extra little bit to put it into the service position is a very big deal. Thanks for mentioning though though or I would have never known that's how you were supposed to work on the front of the engine haha!