TBB's 376 000 mile Audi A4
Discussion
Not sure if I have ever put a thread in readers cars about the tractor so here it is.
Bought it in 2005 with a "mere" 33500k miles on the clock. It's a 1.9tdi red i sport. The purchase required a trip to Wolverhampton by train from Kent and then a horrid long drawn out experience with a main stealer from another marque from whom I will never now buy a car.
My original brief when looking for a car was that it would need to be versatile for my work. Most important it needed to fit a certain amount of boxes in the boot. The audi at the time was the best of the bunch compared with bmw, mazda, seat, skoda etc and oddly was cheaper to run.
I also originally didn't expect to be doing much mileage ( how wrong I was ) I was thinking maybe 20k miles a year max 25. However I had done a temp contract for a chap who then called me up shortly after I had bought it and asked me to go work for him and the rest is history.
TBC need sleep.....
Bought it in 2005 with a "mere" 33500k miles on the clock. It's a 1.9tdi red i sport. The purchase required a trip to Wolverhampton by train from Kent and then a horrid long drawn out experience with a main stealer from another marque from whom I will never now buy a car.
My original brief when looking for a car was that it would need to be versatile for my work. Most important it needed to fit a certain amount of boxes in the boot. The audi at the time was the best of the bunch compared with bmw, mazda, seat, skoda etc and oddly was cheaper to run.
I also originally didn't expect to be doing much mileage ( how wrong I was ) I was thinking maybe 20k miles a year max 25. However I had done a temp contract for a chap who then called me up shortly after I had bought it and asked me to go work for him and the rest is history.
TBC need sleep.....
That's good to know, my old 17year old A4 only has 53,000 on the clock so going by those figures it should last me a lifetime, lol
It does show that it's worth paying out for a decent make motor in the first place as I made a big mistake and bought a 4 year old low mileage Renault before and it was in the scrap yard by the time it was 6 years old with so many problems. But I guess that's what you get buying French.
My father has a 19 year old A6 estate which he uses as a workhorse and in the 4 years of owner ship all it's had is a service plus one oil change two wiper blades and two tyres and it goes through the ticket every year without a problem.
Also my old Audi never has had a single issue and at least you never have to worry about the rust bug.
I find driving mine and my fathers car that they still drive nice and tight as if they where about 3 years old.
The only problem with Audi is that if you bought a clocked one you would never know as nothing on the car including the interior seems to wear.
It does show that it's worth paying out for a decent make motor in the first place as I made a big mistake and bought a 4 year old low mileage Renault before and it was in the scrap yard by the time it was 6 years old with so many problems. But I guess that's what you get buying French.
My father has a 19 year old A6 estate which he uses as a workhorse and in the 4 years of owner ship all it's had is a service plus one oil change two wiper blades and two tyres and it goes through the ticket every year without a problem.
Also my old Audi never has had a single issue and at least you never have to worry about the rust bug.
I find driving mine and my fathers car that they still drive nice and tight as if they where about 3 years old.
The only problem with Audi is that if you bought a clocked one you would never know as nothing on the car including the interior seems to wear.
Morning all. Right.
So anyway for a many thousands of miles things were trouble free just routine servicing at every 18k miles. The only real issue that cropped up was that there was distortion on the drivers door tweeter in my opinion. This meant taking it in to Audi who had a look and listen and could find nothing wrong.
A week or two later it went back in and I insisted they have another look and yet again they could find nothing wrong.I then asked them to replace the speaker as I could hear it even if they couldn't cue some odd looks along the lines of "this guy has a screw loose its a speaker its supposed to make a noise".
At around 120k miles I had an issue or three. First I had a service at audi cambelt etc 880 quid where they also mentioned I needed an anti roll bar replacement which I didn't do then at 130k there was an issue with the clutch. It was believed there was a problem with the release bearing so clutch and bearing were replaced at a cost of around 500 quid.
130k miles a daft young thing in a sainsburys supermarket carpark reversed into the drivers side of me at 5 or so miles an hr which meant a visit to the body shop for the back door to be repaired.
Then came the big one. I decided to go for a drive one evening as I was really stressed and driving helps me relax. It was a bit damp out but I knew the road very well so no qualms there. Big mistake.
Going into a very sharp bend too fast I got temporarily blinded by an oncoming car and missed my braking point. I ended up sliding sideways into a crash barrier doing substantial damage to the rear quarter panel.
I decided not to go through insurance and had it repaired at a body shop privately. Cost the better part of £2.500. A very expensive lesson. By this point I had worked out the running costs. Tyres were still original spec Michelin Primacy and fronts would do around 20-25k rears about twice that. Two sets of pads front to 1 set of disks every 60k miles.
Along the way a windscreen a year due to stone chips etc became the norm. At around 150k miles I popped into a London dealers to get a new headlight bulb fitted. They made me sit around for over an hr then charged me £110. From then on I resolved to learn how to do it myself and quite frankly its a max ten minute job.
At roughly 165k miles I found my wipers to be getting a little slow so took the car to the garage and they removed the mechanism took it apart greased it up and re installed it (known weak point). It lasted another ten thousand miles and then one morning in drizzle they just seized up. I popped round to audi and picked up a whole new unit for 80 pounds and fitted it myself.
At around 200k miles I decided to get my rear arb done and to look into why my aircon wasnt working. It was at this point I met steptoe and son.
A little privately owned garage local to myself not actually called steptoe but I nicknamed them that for a reason. I dropped the car off and asked them to do the rear arb investigate air con repair cost and replace wheel bearing iirc and look into replacing the number plate light strip on the rear boot.
On going to collect the car I discover they have had a few "problems". To start with when they put the car on the raised ramp to do the front left bearing they found that a slide in the middle of their ramp was in the way but that they couldn't slide it backwards as it was getting caught on the bottom of the gearbox.
Thinking on their feet they lowered the car down released the hand brake and rolled the front wheels onto some wooden blocks. They then raised the ramp back up so they could get underneath the car. At this point they found they needed to rock the car for some reason and unsurprisingly it rolled backwards off the blocks and into a wall at the rear of the workshop.
Thankfully the workshop was small enough it didn't roll off the ramp. I only found this out as when I went to pick up the car the one chap had a great big bruise and plaster on his forehead and when I asked what happened he explained that alongside the above issue when he went to replace the rear arb he found the nuts really tight.
He was attempting to get one loose with a large wrench type spanner when it slipped off the nut and smacked him square in the forehead requiring a trip to the a+e for stitches. I understandably couldn't find it in myself to be angry at this point about them rolling my car into the wall as they hadn't done any damage other than to themselves.
Following day I went to put something in the boot and grabbed the interior grab handle to shut it. I pulled down same as I always do only to find myself standing there with the bootlid liner in hand and the bootlid still in its upright position. Yup in the process of trying to work out how to replace the numberplate light strip they had removed it but not put it back correctly. I clipped it back in place myself and decided not to go back.
At around 210-220k miles I found that every now and again they car would seemingly not go on boost. I didnt do anything about it until one day 150 odd miles away from home it just would not boost. It was like driving a tank with a 1l engine. Popped into an audi dealers who diagnosed a faulty boost control sensor and replaced. 80 quid.
250k miles driving to isle of wight on the m25 steering suddenly went really heavy and battery light came on. Pulled onto the hard shoulder and found belt flapping around just behind the fan so turned engine off and had car recovered as couldn't remove the belt. Turned out it was the alternator belt and it had sheared a pulley right off the engine. This required a new pulley assembly, belt and alternator. Cost around 300 or so pounds. A week later and the battery would not hold charge so got a new battery.
270k miles all windows packed in except drivers. This required a new loom in the drivers side door. Roughly 150-200 quid.
300k miles. Dukes of hazard time. Driving to a customer site I was on an unfamiliar road and came across a humpback bridge in a 60 zone. I didn't realise stupidly that it was a humpback bridge. I hit it at around 50-60mph. I got airborne. I then got not so airborne and slammed into the ground on the other side nose first. Drove on half a mile or so thinking wow just got away with that.
Stopped at an intersection and as I pulled away oil light came on. I decided to limp the last mile to customer site and call for recovery. Parked up at customer site and found the last of the cars oil dumping itself on the ground and the temp gauge getting a little on the high side. To say I was upset was an understatement.
Got the car and myself recovered around 160 miles. Car went into the workshop and required a new sump and engine mount. Total cost 300 quid. Surprisingly there was only a very small fracture in the sump yet it had pissed the oil out at a huge rate of knots.
374k miles. I have for around the last 1-150k miles had an issue with judder on uptake and for at least 10k miles had a problem with slip as well. On in gear acceleration the revs would spike 500-1k then drop back and bog down. I was unsure the cause but it made overtaking a no no. I was told it was most likely the dual mass flywheel so last week dual mass flywheel and clutch were replaced. Annoyingly it turned out to be a 40 quid oil seal that had perished which was letting oil onto the clutch causing it to slip. £650
now on 376200 miles as of last night iirc. Next on to do list is a service and new turbo as existing one is on the way out as it has been for last 150k miles really. My fuel economy when I first got the car was 750 miles to a tank never any less. Once got 800 with 50 in reserve. Now I struggle to get 650 per tank which according to a mechanic is due to the turbo.
Pics to follow....
So anyway for a many thousands of miles things were trouble free just routine servicing at every 18k miles. The only real issue that cropped up was that there was distortion on the drivers door tweeter in my opinion. This meant taking it in to Audi who had a look and listen and could find nothing wrong.
A week or two later it went back in and I insisted they have another look and yet again they could find nothing wrong.I then asked them to replace the speaker as I could hear it even if they couldn't cue some odd looks along the lines of "this guy has a screw loose its a speaker its supposed to make a noise".
At around 120k miles I had an issue or three. First I had a service at audi cambelt etc 880 quid where they also mentioned I needed an anti roll bar replacement which I didn't do then at 130k there was an issue with the clutch. It was believed there was a problem with the release bearing so clutch and bearing were replaced at a cost of around 500 quid.
130k miles a daft young thing in a sainsburys supermarket carpark reversed into the drivers side of me at 5 or so miles an hr which meant a visit to the body shop for the back door to be repaired.
Then came the big one. I decided to go for a drive one evening as I was really stressed and driving helps me relax. It was a bit damp out but I knew the road very well so no qualms there. Big mistake.
Going into a very sharp bend too fast I got temporarily blinded by an oncoming car and missed my braking point. I ended up sliding sideways into a crash barrier doing substantial damage to the rear quarter panel.
I decided not to go through insurance and had it repaired at a body shop privately. Cost the better part of £2.500. A very expensive lesson. By this point I had worked out the running costs. Tyres were still original spec Michelin Primacy and fronts would do around 20-25k rears about twice that. Two sets of pads front to 1 set of disks every 60k miles.
Along the way a windscreen a year due to stone chips etc became the norm. At around 150k miles I popped into a London dealers to get a new headlight bulb fitted. They made me sit around for over an hr then charged me £110. From then on I resolved to learn how to do it myself and quite frankly its a max ten minute job.
At roughly 165k miles I found my wipers to be getting a little slow so took the car to the garage and they removed the mechanism took it apart greased it up and re installed it (known weak point). It lasted another ten thousand miles and then one morning in drizzle they just seized up. I popped round to audi and picked up a whole new unit for 80 pounds and fitted it myself.
At around 200k miles I decided to get my rear arb done and to look into why my aircon wasnt working. It was at this point I met steptoe and son.
A little privately owned garage local to myself not actually called steptoe but I nicknamed them that for a reason. I dropped the car off and asked them to do the rear arb investigate air con repair cost and replace wheel bearing iirc and look into replacing the number plate light strip on the rear boot.
On going to collect the car I discover they have had a few "problems". To start with when they put the car on the raised ramp to do the front left bearing they found that a slide in the middle of their ramp was in the way but that they couldn't slide it backwards as it was getting caught on the bottom of the gearbox.
Thinking on their feet they lowered the car down released the hand brake and rolled the front wheels onto some wooden blocks. They then raised the ramp back up so they could get underneath the car. At this point they found they needed to rock the car for some reason and unsurprisingly it rolled backwards off the blocks and into a wall at the rear of the workshop.
Thankfully the workshop was small enough it didn't roll off the ramp. I only found this out as when I went to pick up the car the one chap had a great big bruise and plaster on his forehead and when I asked what happened he explained that alongside the above issue when he went to replace the rear arb he found the nuts really tight.
He was attempting to get one loose with a large wrench type spanner when it slipped off the nut and smacked him square in the forehead requiring a trip to the a+e for stitches. I understandably couldn't find it in myself to be angry at this point about them rolling my car into the wall as they hadn't done any damage other than to themselves.
Following day I went to put something in the boot and grabbed the interior grab handle to shut it. I pulled down same as I always do only to find myself standing there with the bootlid liner in hand and the bootlid still in its upright position. Yup in the process of trying to work out how to replace the numberplate light strip they had removed it but not put it back correctly. I clipped it back in place myself and decided not to go back.
At around 210-220k miles I found that every now and again they car would seemingly not go on boost. I didnt do anything about it until one day 150 odd miles away from home it just would not boost. It was like driving a tank with a 1l engine. Popped into an audi dealers who diagnosed a faulty boost control sensor and replaced. 80 quid.
250k miles driving to isle of wight on the m25 steering suddenly went really heavy and battery light came on. Pulled onto the hard shoulder and found belt flapping around just behind the fan so turned engine off and had car recovered as couldn't remove the belt. Turned out it was the alternator belt and it had sheared a pulley right off the engine. This required a new pulley assembly, belt and alternator. Cost around 300 or so pounds. A week later and the battery would not hold charge so got a new battery.
270k miles all windows packed in except drivers. This required a new loom in the drivers side door. Roughly 150-200 quid.
300k miles. Dukes of hazard time. Driving to a customer site I was on an unfamiliar road and came across a humpback bridge in a 60 zone. I didn't realise stupidly that it was a humpback bridge. I hit it at around 50-60mph. I got airborne. I then got not so airborne and slammed into the ground on the other side nose first. Drove on half a mile or so thinking wow just got away with that.
Stopped at an intersection and as I pulled away oil light came on. I decided to limp the last mile to customer site and call for recovery. Parked up at customer site and found the last of the cars oil dumping itself on the ground and the temp gauge getting a little on the high side. To say I was upset was an understatement.
Got the car and myself recovered around 160 miles. Car went into the workshop and required a new sump and engine mount. Total cost 300 quid. Surprisingly there was only a very small fracture in the sump yet it had pissed the oil out at a huge rate of knots.
374k miles. I have for around the last 1-150k miles had an issue with judder on uptake and for at least 10k miles had a problem with slip as well. On in gear acceleration the revs would spike 500-1k then drop back and bog down. I was unsure the cause but it made overtaking a no no. I was told it was most likely the dual mass flywheel so last week dual mass flywheel and clutch were replaced. Annoyingly it turned out to be a 40 quid oil seal that had perished which was letting oil onto the clutch causing it to slip. £650
now on 376200 miles as of last night iirc. Next on to do list is a service and new turbo as existing one is on the way out as it has been for last 150k miles really. My fuel economy when I first got the car was 750 miles to a tank never any less. Once got 800 with 50 in reserve. Now I struggle to get 650 per tank which according to a mechanic is due to the turbo.
Pics to follow....
Edited by TallbutBuxomly on Sunday 20th May 11:03
So it's not for sale, but link here http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
TallbutBuxomly said:
300k miles. Dukes of hazard time. Driving to a customer site I was on an unfamiliar road and came across a humpback bridge in a 60 zone. I didn't realise stupidly that it was a humpback bridge. I hit it at around 50-60mph. I got airborne. I then got not so airborne and slammed into the ground on the other side nose first. Drove on half a mile or so thinking wow just got away with that.
I've done something very similar...agxster said:
Interesting story, you plan to just keep it forever? Pictures would be nice 
Pretty much I reckon. At this stage its a day by day thing. It tends to be that when dirty I want to get something new but when clean am perfectly happy to keep it. Likewise when a big bill comes up I debate selling it but in the end I guess I just love the "imagine" too much to let it go. 
Waugh-terfall said:
Think it went though at 90,000 on the first A6, and it's getting there on the second at 95,000.Is that not an odd place for the tax disc holder? Any snaps of the back, still wondering if it's the one I followed.
Disco You said:
How's the interior looking?
Dirty..... At the moment the dash cupholder is missing snapped it off by accident and haven't yet replaced it. Ummm the cream side pillars roof etc all need a very good clean esp the drivers side pillar after a mechanic put his dirty hands on it and left a great big handprint.Will most likely get given a full valet at some point in the future but i dont see it as urgent right now.
Seats have no rips or tears though sadly side bolster on drivers seat is a bit worn due to me altering the way i was getting in and out for a few months due to having a serious lower back issue. Other than that pretty much as original really with the wear consistent. Some buttons and switchgear have scratches etc on them but its no surprise really.
HustleRussell said:
It's lasting pretty well considering you aren't being particularly nice to it. My Mondeo TDCI is at 133k and it certainly doesn't feel like it'd do those miles three times over...
Whereas my ickle Ford, a mere stripling at 108k feels like it might, with an equivalent level of attention. However, the bodywork, my reluctance to spend cash on it (given the value of the thing) and a desire for a replacement will mean that it won't, at least not in my hands.Efbe said:
so whats the average mpg you get from it?
with the added costs of fixing the turbo and related issues, has diesel saved you much money?
Not sure if honest as work on miles per tank. Up to about 150 to 160k I was getting 750 per 65l tank with no less than 50 or so miles in reserve according to obc. However have seen a drop to around 600-650 per tank these days.with the added costs of fixing the turbo and related issues, has diesel saved you much money?
That being said economy is on the up since replacing clutch and dmf clearly the clutch slipping was eating a lot of fuel and had been doing so imperceptibly for a lot longer than I thought. Turbo is next issue as it is getting noisy and is clearly long past best and I expect that's where the other 100 or so miles per tank are being lost.
Would be good to get back to 750 per tank as the mystery had been bugging me.
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