Multitronic - any good years?

[jakesmith]

Hi, is there a year when the Multitronic boxes started being OK or are they all dodgy? Presumably anything under 3 years old would be done under warranty. My friend is looking at 2010 A5's but wants an auto & can't stretch to the S5 / 3.0 TDi with the Stron / tip box. He's wary of the multitronic issues though & it's a pain to keep up an expensive warranty on the offchance that it will cover such a predictable failure