Hello, I'm Evan. I own a Ford Explorer (Yes I know it's a FORD!!) It's a great truck but have decided to sell it and get a smaller vehichle. This evening, a friend and I were driving around and saw a '99 Audi A6 parked in a neighbors driveway with a forsale sign... Figured they would want an arm and a leg for it... Suprisingly... They want to get rid of it as they have about 5 cars. Anyway, we stopped... and looked at the sign, Saw $6,000 FIRM on it and I fell in love[:-]. Although, it has 130,000 miles on it. I want it depending on how long it will last me. So I decided to do a little research but cant find much, so I found this site and I'm hoping you guys can help me out!

A few questions are...

Reliability?? How long do you think it will last me if taken care of properly by the previous owner(s) and me?
How expensive are repairs if needed?
How good is it on gas mileage?
Also... do all of them have Quadra Drive? or only some?
If only some... how to the 2WD handle in very mild snow?
and if it has Quadra Drive... How good is it?

I really appreciate it... I will buy it tomorrow or Sunday depending on the facts. THANKS!

-Evan

It looks almost identical to this one, only Pearl White





THANKS AGAIN!

 

Reliability: If its a 2.7t. then it is fairly reliable, if its a 4.2, then its really reliable. I have a 2.7t, 135xxx miles and is still holding strong. If you take good car of your car, you should be fine till 200k.
Repairs: No matter what Audi you have, repairs are almost always pretty expensive.
Gas Milage: ehh, depeding on engine, MPG varies.

Most Audis have QUATTRO, although some do have fwd. Most likely the A6 your looking at has QUATTRO. You can tell by looking in the interior, and on the passenger side dash, there were be a little quattro emblem on the wood trim. Audi's quattro is THE BEST all wheel drive you can get. It handles amazingly in the snow or rain.

 

it;s quattro drive if if it doesn't have quattro then i will still be 4wd just not the quattro system.

 

Make sure the proper maintenance has already been done like the timing belt.

 

About how much are the schedualed oil changes??
I'm getting ready to head over there here in a few. My brother is trying to talk me out of it... this is what he said...

"The 99's have a problem with the abss sytem that costs about 3,000 to fix if it goes out and there's a problem with the engines that cost about 6,000 to fix. Plus oil changes are about 200 cause of the special filters and synthetic oil. that's one reason we might not get one. It would be waaaay more to upkeep then the explorer, and more expensive insurance."

How much of this is true?!?!
I'm going to try and do a little more research while I give this thread time to get more answers... THANKS!


Flip, If it hasnt been done... how much is it to have it replaced?

 

it has a 2.8 Motor, His wife slid on ice and hit a curb so they have replaced the tierods, and A-arms

Only thing after market on it is the front suspension, and the wheels.

He said the electrical is known to go bad in these cars, (He said that may be why the sunroof doesnt work) but everything else seems fine.

And these cars must be pretty sturdy because they were rear ended by a BMW and it only chipped the paint a little on the bumper, he said he hit kinda hard.

But I was thinking if when she hit the curb, it hit so hard that it twisted the tie rods, if it bent the frame too?

 

I doubt hitting the curb bent the frame. Generally the tie-rods give enough, in situations like that, that there is no frame damage.

'99's of alomst all teh Audi have some electrical issues. As far as the sunroof goes, there are a couple of easy things you can try that might remedy the situation:
- open it all the way up, if it's able, and clean the tracks REALLY good, with a few squites of WD40, or similiar, and a clean, dry cloth. You may hafta do this a couple of times to get it completely clean.
- open up the panel where the switch it and give the inside of teh dial a couple squirts of THIS STUFFfrom Radio Shack.
- if those fail, check the fuse.

The oil filter issues CAN be a problem. I have a couple of places, from eBay, that are pretty good about carrying the filter I need at less than Stealership prices. or, you can try BlauParts.com. As far as the cost of synthetic oil... The cost of prevention FAR outweighs the cost of the cure. If cost is that much of an issue, it's a simple DIY.

I have NEVER hears ANYone complain about an ABS issue, and I've been on these boards for almost 2 years.

The only problems with the engines comes from people who don't do the timing-belt change at the recommended intervals (approx. every 90k-miles, or sooner). If the T/B goes, yeah, your gonna PAY, BIG & HARD.

Yes, upkeep WILL be more than the FERD EXPLODER, but, you'll get MUCH better mileage, look MUCH kooler, and, get to hang out here at AF with a SWELL buncha folks.

Insurance, of course, it's a European car. If something or someone tears it up it's gonna cost more for your insurance company to repair it...