How can anyone possibly buy a used Audi quattro anymore?

[Tony Hoffman]

John, you have a kindred spirit here. Of course, I lived in MT for 10
years. When I was younger, SUV's were just starting to get popular, so if
you wanted to get around in the snow you had three choices. Subaru, 4x4
truck, or Quattro. I chose teh Quattro after driving a customer's 84 4000Q
in the snow.

I have an 02 in the shop right now, will be over $3000 to get the car in
shape. And, of course there are plenty of other things, like the torque
converter, window regulator, etc. Don't recall seeing so many little
problems on the pre-96 cars. However, to echo others comments, the V6's are
much better than the 4's in terms of relaibility. In fact, from my
experience you can maintain an A6 2.8/3.0/4.2 or A8 for less than an A4
1.8T. The only major Issue I see with the V8 engined cars are the
transmissions. And, of course, as you read they go bad in the 4-cyl cars as
well. Generally you will see a failure in the 100-140k range for the V8
transmissions.

On the subject of sludge buildup. You can assure you will not have issues.
Drop the pan and replace the pickup tube ($40 last I checked) every 75k. To
drop the pan is a bit of work, but small price for 75k of driving pleasure
(If everything else doesn't fall apart). As far as price, that one you
listed seems pretty reasonable. That car would be closer to $10k down here
(Houston). Maybe even more for the rareness of the manual/Avant combo.

BTW, there were manuals with both the 3.0 and 3.2 V6's. Both 6-speeds.
However, I haven't seen one in an Avant. Not saying they don't exist,
though.

To Kent's post, stay away from DSG's if you want reliability. They share
the same design flaw of the CVT's, which is putting the TCU insude the
transmission. What were they thinking? Oh, Nissan does the same thing, BTW.
Built into the valve body. Worked so well for Audi, we'll give it a try!
And, for that matter, any of the tiptronic VW transmissions. I've seen a
fairly high failure rate in them, when compared to the conventional
automatics. BTW, I've been driving a MK5 5-cyl (170hp) 5-speed for a couple
of days while trying to duplicate an intermittent guage issue. That is one
seriously fun car to drive! If I could get it the same but with Quattro,
I'd be driving a newer car. Oh well, I'll just stick to the '86.

HTH,
Tony

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 3:19 PM, John Cassidy <qforsail at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Drat.  I need a newer car.  I've owned 8 used quattros, 7 of which were
> I5s, 6 were turbos.  The only one that wasn't bullet proof was the lowest
> mile (40k), best maintained of the bunch.  It was an '01 S4, which broke
> the bank in repairs and got me sued when it broke after the sale.  That was
> 2 years ago, and I've saved a little money.  Bygones.  I prefer an awd
> wagon, goodMPG is a must, and I have an unfortunate aversion to Subarus,
> partly because every 3rd car in Montana is an Outback.
>
>
> After wasting too much time surfing Ebay, Craigslist, Autotrader, and the
> local rags, I came across an absolutely cherry '02 A4 Avant 1.8t 5spd. with
> 75kmi.  One owner, fully maintained, synthetics, with records.  It even
> happens to be my first color choice (when does that ever happen?).  The
> $7500 asking price seems acceptable.  The S4 must have been a rare lemon,
> right?  Audis are bulletproof, right?  This is it, me thinks.  Then, as an
> afterthought, the night before I intend to make the offer, I Google it and
> find this:
>
> http://www.edmunds.com/audi/a4/2002/consumer-reviews.html
> Drat.  I guess I'll be looking for a boring old Subaru.
>
>  JC