I just talked to a relative that lives up in Massachusetts and they have an 01 A4 1.8t quattro tip that they are trading in and they are only going to give her $600 for it. So I was thinking about buying it and shipping it down to orlando. I guess it does not drive there is something wrong with the valves or other engine parts so I am assuming I am going to have to rebuild the engine or get a new one so I am going to need to put some money into it to get driving. Also I want to make it a manual transmission so I don't know how big of a deal that would be? I would like to make this a street legal track car.

I am just wondering what other people think about this? I don't have the talent to build or fix this car on my own but I always wanted to have an older body style a4 with an APR turbo kit. So I will need to put in a manual transmission and most likely a new engine, then down the road get a big turbo kit for it, suspension and other various stuff. How much do you think I will have to spend on the car and is it worth it?

 

its going to cost way more then it would to buy a running car, in your area, already with the engine and transmission you want and upgrade it if you cant do the work yourself. you are looking at easily 40 hours of labor.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280755
this guy did a manual swap if you want more info on that.

 

You pretty much just quoted him and then didnt answer any of his questions?

It pretty much comes down to whether or not you have the room to store the car while youre working on it. I had a 92 mustang that I bought for 200 dollars and garaged it for a couple years, threw a couple hundred into it here and there, and it was finished in 3 years.

Atleast you realize how much money it's going to take, it will be a lot of work, but it will also be a lot of fun and a HUGE learning experience.

I'm also from MA so if it's somewhat close to me i could go take a look at it for you

 

thanks for the input I do have a 2 car garage and right now I only have my bmw parked in it so there is room for the audi to sit. I have always wanted to work on cars myself so would this be a good car to start learning on? The car is in really good condition it except for the mechanical stuff, it was my younger cousins college car and she didn't take care of it very well, the thing only has 70k miles on it and there is something pretty wrong with the engine. I would like to get it running so i can drive it for now and work on it little by little. The interior is really clean and it has not been in an accident so it seems to be like it would be the perfect track car with some work. I am guessing about $2k in work to get it running and drivable then from there start modifying it. Would you agree?

 

Sounds like a great deal, i'd scoop it up regardless. TONS of people are looking for parts from cars that year. I would certainly look into fixing it though, it's a lot of fun, and when you rebuild it, if something goes wrong in the future you have some knowledge about your car rather than having some hack of a mechanic tell you what you need

 

i highlighted two important pieces of what he said and gave an opinion based on what he said.

a complete engine rebuild can cost you $2500 just in parts, depending on what needs replacing. if you are doing the labor then its just going to take you time. if you need to pay to have all this done it might not be worth it. a female college student probably doesnt know how to drive a turbo'd car, change with synthetic oil in on a regular basis, let the turbo cool off before shutting the car off, no boost until the car warms up, etc. the car sounds like it was just run into the ground. there could be a substantial amount of damage done by this point. or on the flip side you might get lucky and it only needs new spark plugs.

i would figure out what you want the end product to be, what your goals are for the car modification wise, before you even pick up a wrench. that way you can plan out exactly what you want to fix, what needs to be upgraded etc so you dont have to replace stuff twice.

 

It's do-able but it would be expensive. Of course anything is possible with money.

You might have to spend as much money fixing this car as compared to getting a new one that is running. You also mentioned the car is close to 70,000 in which the timing belt also needs to be replaced soon. This is a cheap job ($200 in parts) if you do everything yourself but it would be somewhere around 500-1000 if you take it to a mechanic/shop/dealer.

 

If I were you, i'd have someone local go check it out and report back to you what may be wrong with it. If you do need an entire engine rebuild, could be too much effort for what youre trying to do. If it needs a turbo or some vac lines or a bunch of little things, that's definately do-able. You have to think about the shipping charges too though, it's probably an upwards of 500 bucks, so before you get the car you're going to be over a grand.

Worst comes to worst you can get the car and part the entire thing out and make some money off of it. Don't know what else to tell you.

Goodluck

 

i'll buy it from your family!

i'm in CT

don't forget the cost to get it down to florida, and be prepared to spend well over $2k for the tranny swap

 

ya if you can't fix it yourself don't buy it but let me know, i can take it off their hands and give you something too for the heads up