Hey guys, I just fell in love with the B7 A4 at the dealership today and am looking at getting on in the next few months. I am absolutely in love with the looks and interior quality. I am very concerned about the reliability ratings I have heard about though.

I am hearing people say if you are very strict on maintaining it, warm it up before driving, check oil every fill up, etc etc that they are very reliable. Also, I am somewhat handy with a wrench, so I can do the more basic things, so if a window regulator goes out I can take care of it. I also don't mind checking the oil level every few hundred miles. In freshman year of college I drove a japanese tuner drift car, so if it's not ALWAYS down it's better than that lol. I'm mostly concerned about the cost of maintaining it.

Given that, how reliable are they if they are treated well? Also what sort of costs can one expect to be seeing if babying the car?

 

I highly recommend buying the a4, I have a 2001 a4, Ive had it for about 8 months and I love it! I can honestly say I will probably only buy audi from now on unless I get a truck. You are right they do need to be babied a little bit, mines needed to be babied a lot haha, but its so worth it. I have only had mine for a short amount of time but mine has almost 100,000 miles on it and it runs perfect. And the whole germen car is expensive because of parts is not true, some of the stuff I had to replace on my car was cheaper to replace than it would have been on a civic. So I definitely say go for it.

 

Wow I never would have thought that. Is it just the dealership labor that kills most people? I have a hard time believing people when I hear them moaning about a $500 bill for something simple. When you say you have to baby it a lot, what do you mean exactly?

 

don't believe everything you hear...check the oil every fill up? that's just plain silly. as for the warm up and following maintenance-that can apply for all cars.

i've followed the scheduled maintenance and i haven't had any problems. the cost of maintaining it is comparable with any other make. the dealership i go to is very honest too. my regular scheduled maintenance was covered under audi care up to 50,000 miles. i passed that a while ago and now i have to pay for maintenance.

i'm more selective with what the dealership should check for scheduled maintenance now just to save a few bucks. for example, one of the items is check for leaks or check tire pressure and rotate tires. well, they don't have to check for leaks because i know the car doesn't leak anywhere. and i can rotate the tires and check the pressure myself. the main thing is to change the fluids as required. i prefer to change the oil every 5000 miles.

 

I went from an A6 to a Mazda3 as I was concerned about future repair cost. That lasted a year and I am now in an A4. I have read that some cars use more oil than others so how often to check could depend on your car. I checked mine every couple of days until I realized it wasn't dropping any. Now I plan on checking about once a month. Repairs could be expensive, but from what I have read if the car is taken care of they are few and far between.

I do not warm up or cool down my car as I have to drive a couple of miles at 25 mph or lower when coming or going from my home. Otherwise I pull into where I need to go and let the car run while I get ready to get out. I shut the car off as I am opening the door. That should provide enough cool down time.

Check the car you are buying history and have it checked out by a mechinic. These cars can easly go 200k+ with little problem.

 

Its not really that I have had to baby it persay its just right after I got it I needed to replace a lot of stuff. For example I had to repalce the fuel pump becuase the dealership I got it from alway had it running on empty, I test drove it 3 times before I bought it over a period of a month and I dont think they filled it up once. And honestly I dont think the previous owner took that good care of it either. Other things I had to replace were cv shaft, both outer tie rod ends and front alignment, sending unit which was my boyfriends fault, he broke it when he was replacing the fuel pump. And yes labor is what cost the most parts are not expensive, if I didnt have my boyfriend to do all the labor for me I probably would have had to pay like 3000 for everything, when I only paid about 800 for parts.

 

I just bought my 08 A4 with 40k miles on it this weekend from Carmax and for $2k got their 6 year 100k mile warranty. Deductible is $200 for each problem or $150 if you have their store fix it. I'm handy with all sorts of tools as well but this car has some REALLY expensive parts and if Audi has to replace anything out of warranty I'd be PISSED I didn't buy the warranty to begin with. I'd rather play it safe than owe $3k in repairs over time if things do fall apart.

 

So, are you going to be pissed if in the next 6 years or 60K miles you do not have $2k+ in repairs covered by the extended service contract?

Also, what expensive parts are you worried about? As in what is "REALLY" expensive on an Audi that isn't on say a Ford Focus? In this day cars all run about the same to repair.

 

I agree with you, rhodes. With the few things I've had to do, the parts haven't been that expensive, but the dealership I go to charges $109/hr for labor and inflates all their labor estimates by at least 100% (they quoted me 1.5 hours for something I did--with no prior knowledge of what I was getting into--in about 40 minutes). Although, $2k isn't too bad for that level of extended warranty (Fidelity, Audi's extended warranty partner, wanted like $4500 for the same for my car when I bought it), I tend to steer clear of them. Unless you have a catastrophic failure (which is rare), they usually don't pay off. But, at $2k, your break-even point is fairly low.

 

For the OP, I have fallen in love with my 2006 A4 in the about 14 months I've had it. Some minor things have needed seeing to (it was used with 35k miles and 2 prior owners when I bought it), it's not been financially debilitating. I replaced one part myself (the trunk latch), plan on doing another myself (the window safety switch in the driver's door), and had one of the hydraulic engine mounts (too much for me to get into) and the glove compartment door (because it broke 1 day before I was going on a road trip with the car and didn't have time to deal with it on my own) done at the dealership.

Keep in mind that a lot of what you see on the internet is the negative rather than the positive. People don't go on forums to post about how they've gotten 200k miles out of their car with just changing the oil, they come here to ask about a problem or complain that they have a lemon. Some cars use more oil, some none (mine falls into that category thankfully). Some have had cam follower issues (Audi is now covering that up to 120k miles) and some haven't. If you have a good mechanic or a dealership you can trust to not rip you off, you'll be fine. The German cars cost a little more to maintain than a Ford, but it's worth it.