Considering a 2000 or 2001 A4 avant

[Taka Mizutani]

170hp 1.8T in 2001, change to drive-by-wire and increased boost.
Side curtain airbags came in 2001, I'm pretty sure.

Tiptronic is lousy in a turbo car- 1.8Ts are total dogs with tiptronic-
stand on
the gas and then wait for the car to move. Heck, even our V70R with 300hp
is a "stand on the gas and wait for the transmission to react" kind of car.

As for oil sludge, if the car is maintained regularly (3k intervals) with
synthetic
oil, you'll have no issues. We did 5k intervals on our '99.5 A4 1.8T and
when
there was a sparkplug failure, I got to see the internals- everything was
very
nice and clean- a testament to the Mobil 1 0W40 that has been used since the
5k oil change. (this was on a ~52k engine)

Control arm issues- these cars go through control arms, and there are 8 of
them
up front, IIRC. Expensive to fix as well- cost something like $600 when we
had to
do one.

I never heard of exhaust manifold cracking or tie rod seals being issues,
but maybe
we never owned the car long enough to find out.

I think with a baby, you may find that you quickly outgrow the A4 Avant-
it's not very big,
and from what I gather, you end up carrying a lot of stuff with small kids.
You'd probably
be better off with an A6 2.7T sedan (the trunk is huge).

Taka