Yesterday I traded a 98 blazer for a 2000 a4 Quattro. My blazer wasn't perfect and neither is the Audi--however I got shafted. The a4 drove fine around town but I had to pull over on highway on way home due to overheated engine. The interior is rough but I can replace all of that.

What is typical engine issues with these? I've owned German before but never an Audi (got it for the Quattro to keep my 135i garaged over winter-needed gas mileage better than blazer too) how does turbo hold up? Where should I look for boost leaks? Typical oil issues? How does engine internals hold up over high mileage? Any tranny issues?

It's got quite a few on the clock (160k) but for the year that's actually not bad. Auto tranny with slap shift, I'm tempted to just toss a whole new motor in but not sure I need to do anything that drastic just yet

I'm a mechanical engineer by profession and have the means and capability to do just about everything in my garage so no issues there

 

Throwing a whole new engine in is a bit excessive, it could be any number of things (water pump is most likely), did the car come with any service records? If not I would check the timing belt since its probably due for a changing, as far as the mileage, I have 195k on mine with original turbo and no major problems. Can you check and see if the oil is conventional or synthetic? That would make a huge difference in life of the turbo and engine itself

 

the engine itself is knocking pretty good.

full synthetic oil

i was going to have dealer do a full inspection before i did anything--I was just seeing if there were things that I should have them look at specifically. There's quite a few electrical issues (speedo doesn't work, no windows or sunroof fiunctionality, key FOB is worthless, check engine light is on, oil light dings despite dipstick reading full, etc) so I want to do a scan of things and get a list printed out and start going through and fixing things before snow flies

 

The oil light is for low oil pressure which would definitely make the engine knock...and die. If the previous owner drove it hard or alot with low oil pressure the engine is done. You most likely have a sludge problem

 

Sounds like you should have kept the Blazer. Hard to beat a Chevy. This one is going to cost you big $$$$ to get right I bet.

 

Well you see the beauty of buying German is endless problems but the B5's are good cars.

 

the blazer was averaging 9 mpg and I drive 30 miles one way to work... it was eating me alive in gas. and i needed to get something with better mileage. I was told he "never had any problems with the engine or entire drivetrain system" and then he bolted as soon as titles were transferred and won't return calls. I know I got a very raw deal... but I can't trade this to anyone else and feel decent about myself.

I'm going to fix this car and make it good, lesson learned but you can't really help it when you are flat out lied to about the vehicle

 

yea that's what I was afraid of. I need it scoped and to find out for sure but after what i've been reading I'm going to start searching for a new engine and just start from scratch. i have a few months before i need it for winter so i can afford to tear into it

 

does anyone know of any Ohio Law that would be applicable here?