Agreed!

 

I bought the 2002 3.0L car with 85K on it for my wife as a one owner always maintained car. For the next 30 K this is what I had/ have trouble with:

Engine consummes oil. A liter every 1000 miles
Timing belt change at 90K
Failed water pump a little over a year afterwards; blew out bearing and coolant
All 6 Coil Packs replaced
Wiper assembly seized
Washer bottle leaks
Headlight washers dont work
Air Bag light; seat connector trouble X2
Left front wheel bearing shot; replaced
Temp sender changed
Blowing Rear and license plate Light bulbs & sockets
Radio locked up. Cure; removed fuse and reinserted to reset
O2 sensors bank 2
Power steering pump noisey & whines
no winter heat-congested htr coil
poor summer AC, Leaks at connections
power driver seat stopped working
info display works only in cooler weather
ashtray door not working and does not stay shut
passenger seat heater partially works.
One horn blown and not working
Siezed rear caliper

As much as I like the look of the car, it really is a headache compared to our Lexus and Subaru WRX/STI cars we have with similar mileages on them. The A4 is the best looker (Especially with the A8 style rims.)
Tom

 

Its always the ABS Module..

 

Easy: When your idle runs too high, chances are your vacuum hoses have a leak. Inexpensive to fix.

 

I'm not sure about the 2.8 engines, but my 1.8T had the oil sensor going beserk at around 120K and the dealer told me that it was a faulty oil pump. I went ahead and replaced the oil pump at an independent ASE certified shop. Two months later it was revealed that it was an oil sludge problem on the turbo engines and all dealership work was to be reimbursed. Luckily, a mechanic at the dealership told me I could claim a reimbursement with ASE certified work. Phew! You can imagine my relief when I got a check back for the work! The 1.8T's need an oil flush every 100K miles or so. It's amazing how different the engine sounds when it's done. I know because I bought mine new.
P.S I have 318250 miles on my baby and she surely needs a flush soon. I made a promise to post the pics if she made it to 320,000K.
*Fingers crossed*

 

Something tells me you bought your car used. I can understand the frustrations when you buy a nice looking car only to be stuck with an avalanche of defects. Trust me, whomever had the car before you bypassed some maintenance service and left you with all the ensuing problems. Aside from the clutch (I have a tiptronic transmission) most of the problems you listed are common and expected. I had mine replaced in regular intervals and I never noticed them as "problematic". 318K plus mileage with the same 4 cylinder 5V engine is a bonus.
As far as the pixelation on the screen, trust me, most owners experience it. You have a choice of replacing it with an after market product.

 

Aside from the airbag light and horn, I've had the same problems too. How long have you owned your car? Like I said in another post, you may have inherited somebody else's problem. That's the downside of buying a used car. New owners cut corners when it comes to maintenance and pass the problems to somebody else to foot the bill and rave the downside of the car. Audis in my opinion are one the best built cars. I have owned them for over 15 years and they are the best luxury cars in terms of value. Lexus (Toyotas) and Subaru are only good when under 200K miles. Trust me, I know it first hand. Oh, add Honda (Acura) & Nissan (Infiniti) to the list.

 

Actually the car I bought had all the service stickers stamped by audi at all the intervals. I'm not complaining, most of the stuff is general maintence stuff. You can disagree... but I think the car is over engineered making them a pain in the *** to work on while causing more problems than it should. I've worked/built many cars throughout my life and I just shake my head at some of the choices that are made on these cars. I'm not really going to get into it... its my opinion, like I said the car hasn't been that bad too me.

 

We have had the car for almost 3 years. Whilst I can agree to inheriting used car problems, I do not think this was the case here.

The car was bought from a dealership (non audi) who prided themselves in their 155 point check. The maintenance history indicated A4's single previous owner the performed recomended service only at Audi deakerships and per their recomendations.

Problems like an early clogged heater coil, siezed wiper assembly, coil pack failure, air bag light malfunction can be considered as engineering/ quality issues rather than maintenance related.

We all have our influnces through sales/marketing/forums and most of us want to defend the purchase decision we made was a good one. We all define value differently.

For the intent of a good looking, quality 4 wheel, trouble free fun car for my wife and daughter to drive, the A4 was not a right decision due to the reliability issues. There is no running down of Audi. Just Facts from someone who has three used cars with similar mileages & good maintenance histories.





Tom

 

my list of my problems since 66k

spring broke. like 100 miles in when i bought it.
wheel bearings the whole way around at like 70k
o2 sensors going off at 80k haven't touched them yet but i think now it is affecting the cars performance just a little.
cracked the oil pan at 90. my fault
sunroof, cruise control and ignition switch went out at 100k
valve gaskets at 110k

somewhere in there as well the electric line on the front right for my abs came off and rubbed up against the tires. the lines would short out as i turned and set the brakes off. took a look noticed the problem soldered the wires back and taped them up and zip tied them back in place and haven't had a problem yet.