Considering a 2000 or 2001 A4 avant

[Wallace White]

Hi Taka -

On 10/12/05, Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com> wrote:
> 170hp 1.8T in 2001, change to drive-by-wire and increased boost.

Maybe the throttle-by-wire change enabled the Tiptronic to rev match?

>  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.

Heck, my 5kcstq is stand-and-wait-while-that-big-turbo-spools-up, so
I'm used to it. ;)  I would certainly prefer a manual, but my wife
never has gotten comfortable with one.

>  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)

That's good to hear. Hope others with higher mileage concur.

>  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.

That's unfortunate. How often do they go through these?

>  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).

Tthe recent A6 never did it for me. I'd like to have a smaller car
than the 5k, too. But you may be right about needing more space. The
2002+ A4 avant seems a little bigger.

Thanks,
Wallace