'93 90CSQ, 99K miles -- Confused female in need of advice....

[Diana Johnson]

Hi All.  Let me first say this car is Audi #3 for us ('84 4000S 256K
miles, '91 100 160K miles), purchased by a private owner the day before
yesterday.  I noticed an oil leak when I test drove it and asked the
owner about it and was told he had just taken it to Jiffy Lube and they
spilled some oil.  BS!  I took it to the dealership and had them find
the source of the leak.  Both the head gasket and the valve cover gasket
are leaking, they estimated about 1 qt/3000 mi.  I looked through his
repair records and low and behold the valves were machined (not at a
dealership) at 82K miles.  At that time they replaced the head gasket
but not the valve cover gasket.  The dealership is giving me a quote of
about $1700 to replace both!  OUCH!  So here's my dilemma, I'm sure a
familiar one:  Put the $$ into it now or trade it in for a new one.  If
the rest of the car was in perfect condition there'd be no question, but
it does have some other problems (electrical and cosmetic).  I have this
bad feeling in my stomach that this owner was abusive, although at first
I thought he just might be a slob for not keeping it clean (and we all
know Audis run better when they're clean).  It has a manual
transmission, so that's one less thing to go wrong.  I just have this
feeling that the gaskets aren't going to be the end of it.  I hate to
part with it (it's even pearl, my favorite Audi color), but I don't want
to end up paying $13000 for a $9000 car, you know?

Sad in St. Paul,
Diana