I have been reading that if you plan on doing much work to a Audi that you be good to invest in a vag-com. Now I have an 99 a6 and was wondering if there is a certain type of vag-com that I would need to get for my car? Also can anyone tell me of a trust worthy and respected company to buy one from? Thank you for your help.

 

Ross-Tech.

 

Do a search on Vagcom in this thread and you'll see the alternatives.
There are freebee programs with a generac cable and the full blown RossTech system.

You can check out the Ross Tech site..

I used the freebee software with generac cable from ebay for years on 3 Audi's with out a problem but it requires a laptop and has limited use. It was all I needed

 

ok when you say limited use what all can you do with the generac one? I think I did come across the Ross Tech one but I'm not really wanting to spend 300-800 on one just for one car that I know I won't have for very long.

 

Well when you say "invest", spending $300 is pretty reasonable if you think there's a small chance you'll have to deal with many VAG cars throughout your life.

I currently just use a cheap ebay cable and couple it with slightly-not-completely-original ross-tech software. If I wasn't in college and had a job that made decent money, one of the first things I would buy would be a nice real Ross-Tech VAG Cable. If you want I can give you the files necessary to get an ebay cable to work well (full features, not limited). The best compatibility is with winXP, but I also have one that works okay with win7. Since you only have a '99 with limited features and no CAN you don't need to use the new versions of the ross tech software and that's why it can still work.

 

jumping in on this.
so if one was to get those files and the cheapy ebay cable it should do fine for most tasks (can i get the temps and such to flush the tranny?)
if so woohoo im buying this cable and flushing the tranny right after im done putting my car back together lol

@nm3210 any chance of getting those precious files from u?

 

The instructions on Ross Tech website has all the information you need. I have the ebay cable and found it was useful for reading and resetting codes. I bought the software as an experiment and it's a neat toy, but you can f things up real fast with it so be careful!

Bob