92-93-94 Quattro V6

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Hi Steve:

I too made the same kind of jump that you are contemplating.  I sold my 89
200 Quattro Avant and bought a "new" 94 100CS Quattro Avant, that had 39,000
miles in its eight years of service.  Here are my impressions:

First of all, the newer cars will most certainly have an automatic
transmission.  The automatic transmission is adaptive and I find it less
than satisfying, especially when I compare it with the automatic in my '93
V8, which has a lockup torque converter.  The Automatic in the CS is
programmed for economy, and therefore dumps into the highest gear possible
as soon as possible, and with only 170 horsepower or so in this heavy car,
the transmission shifts quite a lot, or so it seems to me.

Secondly, the V6 is quite underpowered for traffic conditions commonly found
in US urban driving.  For travel over the road, however, the car is has
impeccable road manners, and adequate power with excellent fuel ecnomy and
comfort.  My wife and I drove to Florida a few months after I bought the
car, and got to drive in and around Boca Raton around Thanksgiving, and
found that I was using heavy throttle a lot in the traffic of south Florida.
This is not a problem at all here in rural Maine, where the car seems
perfectly suited, and for our purposes, is just perfect.

The interior of the newer body is much superior to the older style Type 44s.
More foot and hip room, and the heater/ac controls are much better and the
system WORKS a lot better.  I think the 92-93-94 100CS is a significant
improvment ergonomically, over the older model.

Our 100CS gets marginally better fuel economy than did my 200 Quattro Avant
(turbo).  I NEVER got better than 23 miles per gallon with that car no
matter what I did, whereas the 100CS will get 25-26 easily on a trip.

The V6 engine is a LOT more expensive to service than was the inline 5 of my
200.  I just did the timing belt and waterpump, with all rollers and
tensioners and assorted stuff that needs to be done at 60,000 miles, and the
bill was nearly $900 (authorized dealer).  Previous to that, the only item
that I had to have repaired was a leaking hydraulic line, which in itself
wasn't expensive, but the necessary removal of the garbage on the top of the
engine as well as the brake booster and assemby drove the labor cost up
pretty good, and this was at the independent garage....that was $400 or so.
Otherwise, in 22,000 miles the car has been perfect.  Recently I have
developed a fault in the HVAC controller, and the car will have to return to
the dealer for that problem a bit later on...perhaps late February.

The reason that I bought this car was that my new wife cannot drive a
standard transmission car.  The 100CS is superior, but were it not for the
need of an automatic transmission, I would probably still have the 200
Quattro.  It took six months for me to locate this particular car.  It was
at a BMW dealer in Kansas City, who had taken it in on trade.  The car was
one owner, and all services had been performed at the authorized Audi
dealer, so the service history was complete from new.

As everyone else will tell you, find the BEST car with the BEST service
history that you can, and paying a qualified service technician for a
pre-purchase inspection is a terrific idea also.  Some of the early '92's
had some "issues" with transmissions and electrical systems, but the later,
1993-1994 cars were pretty reliable, which is why I wanted a '94.

Good luck!

Roger