Looking at a cheaper car and 02-03 A4s are pretty cheap. Assuming one with lower miles is in the price range, how is their reliability? Any issues to look out for? 3.0 vs 1.8T?

 

The 3.0 is a terrible motor, and the 1.8T is slow. I've heard they can be tough on the wallet. Personally, I'd stay away, unless I found a cool 1.8T Avant Ultrasport, for cheap.

 

1.8T is super reliable, time i owned it i only had 1 electrical problem with it, the windows and radio stopped working, cost me $220 do fix other than that, no major problems, just regular maintenance. Never had to change any sensors or anything of that sort. I've owned one from about 30Kmiles to about 115K miles.
Once drove 6 hrs from Rochester NY to NYC and still had a little over half a tank left when i got to NYC.

Stay away from 3.0s though is my advice to you.

 

I have only had a few problems with my 2.0 b7, although I just had to fork over $1500 today to get it serviced at 55,000mi.

Bunch of my friends had b6 1.8's. b7 2.0's & 3.2's, as well as b5 s4's and b7 s4's - and when we're all together all we joke about is all the same problems we shared with our audi's.

 

$1500?? I thought the 55 and 65K services were $7-800 each? I bought both for $750 as a package when I purchased the car.

 

Yeah, well that's because they found my "e-vap valve" pinched badly, so they have to replace it, which was another $615 bs.

 

I had a b5 and it was expensive enough that I had to sell it after just a year. I really loved that car but the little things just kept adding up, wheel bearings, headlight stalk, and a couple other things that I can't remember now.

 

I had a B5 S4 and the only real issues I had were caused by track/backroad abuse. I think you could pick up one of these cars for really cheap. I sold my 400hp S4 almost two years ago for $18k, which to be honest was more than it was worth.

Sorry I can't help with the A4, but I thought the S4s were pretty solid, though very nose heavy. If I can think of any issues I had I'll edit this post, but for now I'm still on the clock.

EDIT: As we're currently circulating in the hole (a lot of the terms out here sound somewhat ghey) here on the rig I have time to mess around on the computer.

I remember having problems with my turbos right after buying the car, but that could have been the previous owner. From my experience turbo cars are more expensive to maintain relative to a N/A car. I replaced mine with K04s since Audi wanted to charge me out the ass for the stock units.

Other than that I had issues with the gearbox. It seemed that I somehow bent a tungsten rod within the box that made it damn near impossible to get into first. Being that I was in college at the time, I either muscled it in or started off in 2nd. I also had to replace the control arms, but that was pure track abuse and I replaced them with stronger aftermarket parts.

 

I had a 1999 A4 few years ago. I bought it was 73k and I got rid of it at around 98k. For the time I had it I replaced the control arms twice, ABS sensor, wheel bearing, and the clutch was ready to go. For the time I had it and it ran well I loved it, but it was frusterating when I got in the car and a new light came on the dash. My friends father has a new A4 3.2 and has close to 60k already and for him so far so good.

 

thanks all for feedback. Sounds like no honda and german $$ to fix anything... pass