madsedan

I have had a couple of VW's (2001 Passat V6 and 2003 Jetta 2.0) that my wife drove and I had a 98 A4 1.8tq that I drove for about 6 months. I did not have luck with these cars but I'm still drawn to the Audi cars.
The A4 I bought used, 500 miles out of warranty from the original owner, the turbo blew 2 days after I bought it and Audi wouldn't do anything so I did a K04 upgrade, software, etc. Nothing crazy but a little more power. A few months later the clutch started slipping, ikely due to the new power, and the control arms were clicking bad, all in a 60k mile car. The dealer said it would be close to $5k so I sold the car.
The Passat and Jettas were great, they had issues and were in the shop for dumb crap but it was under warranty. Once the warranty was gone around 60k miles the cars simply started falling apart.

Now, fast forward a few years, I am looking at buying an A3 for daily driving and kid hauling, will be used, 2-3 years old, and preference is for a FWD 2.0t model.

Are these cars any better than the Audi/VW products I've experienced prior?
I figured if I kept it simple (no DSG or fancy sunroof) I should be ok but will it still be as hard on the wallet as the A4 I had previously? As nice as it was to drive it was just too damned expensive to keep up, literally every 3-4 months something needed to be checked out or replaced and I was having another car payment once a quarter.

yamamotod

Boy you and I both. I owned a 2001 a4 with around 37,000 mi. Around 60,000 mi. my turbo blew so I went for the upgrade to k04, chip, intake, and exhausttwo months I had to fix something. The only free repair I got was the coil pack recall. Then I totaled it. Then couple years ago I bought 2006 a3, 2.0 with 28,000 mi. That month check engine lights was going off like every 2two to 3three months. I must have spent around 3 to 4 thousand bucks already on maintenance and repairs. I








m nervous driving hard on this car thinking engine light may go on. Anyways, in my opinion and experience with audience is that its pretty expensive to maintain them. Im still learning but I have so much repairs on audis that I feel it can't break down with all the repairs that were done. But its fun to drive audis!!

madsedan

Yep, I'm officially done with Audi I think, I figured I'd follow up with my Friday experience after my initial post and what I ended up buying.
I shopped around a few cars Friday evening, went to an Audi dealer and looked at a 2009 A3. The price was good, it was a single owner car, fully dealer serviced with 32k miles. The salesman made me feel great about the car and then we test drove it.... The car was bucking something awful when we first started driving, we had started the car and let it idle for about 30 seconds while he explained interior parts, etc. He claimed we may have let it idle too long????
It smoothed out a bit on the test drive, then "BAM" a strange noise from under the hood and a blinking CEL. I told him I knew that meant stop the engine so we parked it. He called the dealer and they were sending a tow as we walked 1/2 mile back to the dealership.
When we got back, the mood was entirely different as the sales manager walked up and asked how I liked the car, he didn't know it had died yet. It went down something like this....
"How did you like that A3, nice car isn't it?"
"Well I wouldn't know, it only made it a 1/2 mile before dying."
"Oh my, (he turns to the salesman) what happened?"
Him and the salesman walk off as he gives me a disapproving glance, like I went drag racing in his car. I never see the salesman again and the sales manager decides to take over, I suspect the salesman told him I had my own financing and was a serious buyer, etc.
The SM apologized and asked if I'd like to come back in the morning or look at something else. He asked me if I had prior AUDI experience so I told him about my VW/Audi experience as I listed in my first post, and I could see the light go out in his eye. He said "It sounds like Audi may not be the right car for you?" He knew I wasnt buying anything at that point as we were walking to my car. I asked him "Based on my previous 3 strikes, and a warrantied/cherry car having catastrophic failure on a test drive would he buy another Audi?" We shook hands and parted ways.

I then went to a Honda dealer and had a great experience with them and bought an "as new" 2010 Fit Sport with manual tranny and 9k miles, Honda Certified, for $15,7k and finished for the day.

As much as I love the Audi product line I really don't think I'll ever consider them on a purchase again, I mean honestly, I've tried several of their family of products and so far the only that wasn't a disappointment was the Porsches I owned before I had kids.
The Audi dealer and service after the sale was not good, nowhere near what I had come to expect from the Porsche or BMW dealers I had dealt with, and as was the case with the VW cars, once they were out of warranty and having an issue every 2-3 months they were literally worthless. The Passat V6 (a german built VW model unlike the Jetta we had) we couldn't even get the VW dealers to bid on, they didn't even want it on a trade, said there were too many service issues with a 2001 Passat with over 50k miles.

Thanks for the good times and the bad but I must tell Audi/VW goodbye.

uberwgn

Mad, welcome aboard! You can spare yourself major aggravation by purchasing a CPO car from an Audi dealer that will have warranty for several years.

We've had good experience with our cars and the dealer seems well-prepared to care for and repair these cars.

LWNY

It is hard to buy a used car with known record. When getting sporty cars that are driven by young drivers, you might end up with one that has been chipped so it stresses the engine to above what the mfg thinks is safe level for longevity. You should be worried about turbo motors the most.

The Fit is a good fit for you. Generally bought by people who puts cars in the 'appliance' category. They are a safer bet, especially when all you want is an appliance.

absoluTT A3

Honda makes good cars. But that Fit is so small... I don't care how good the crash tests are, it just doesn't feel safe to me.

I bought my 2007 A3 new in August '07. Still driving it, with no problems whatsoever... except for a broken center arm rest lid latch. I have really enjoyed this car. I'm now out of warranty and still going with it.

Mind you, I had a friend who owned a 2002 Audi A4 and he had no trouble until the warranty expired. He neglected to renew the warranty. Guess what? $8k of trouble over the next two years. He ditched it and said he'd never go back to Audi.

Who knows what could have been wrong with that 2009 A3. Audi is not lemon free. They also need to be well cared for. Regular oil changes. Japanese cars take a lot of abuse and keep going. German cars DO NOT.

Audi had some seriously dismal reliability periods during the 60's and 70's. In the mid 80's, things began to look up with the 80 and 100 model series. But reliability remained spotty. I think Audi finally turned the corner with 2004. There's much more cooperation between VW and Audi. Quality Control is very good, overall. I would buy an Audi again. But, I'm not dead fast loyal. I always shop around to see what's out there.

rururu1

Here is my two cents. I owned two Honda's, 2000 Honda Accord Coupe and 2002 Honda Civic, both purchased brand new. At the time I thought Japanese cars are what everybody should buy. Unfortunately both cars turned out to be pain. Accord had engine replaced under warranty @40,000 km and Civic had a weird clicking noise that we had to take to the dealer 7 times to finally figure it out. In 2006 I made a switch to 2006 A3 and since then owned 2006 A4, 2003 Allroad and 2011 Q5 2.0 then I do not plan on buying another Japanese car any time soon. If you don't mine a boring ride then Honda is an ok car with overrated reliability.