Audi TT 225 | Shed of the Week
Some way from the greatest TT in the world - but it could be the cheapest?
What does £600 buy these days? Shed will confirm that it gets you a weekend for two at a three-star provincial hotel featuring carpets that aren't too sticky and meals that are more carefully microwaved than usual. Today he can also announce that it gets you an Audi TT 225 with no apparent issues and a valid MOT ticket. Can't be bad.
Actually, it can be bad. After all, Audis aren't what they used to be. Shed is basing that statement on something which he has recently read about, and which he thought he might try for the first time in his life, i.e. research. Normally his scribblings are fuelled by the half-baked and often wrong stuff swirling round inside his warty old bonce, but his son Potting is visiting the old homestead this week and Shed has managed to talk him into doing some research on Audi values in exchange for Shed bravely eating most of his dinners under the table when Mrs Shed isn't looking.
Excitingly, the research results are in. At the time of writing, there were (coincidentally) 225 sub-22k cars in PH classifieds with 150hp or more under the bonnet, that being Shed's arbitrary minimum for a bit of fun behind a steering wheel. 23 of those 225 cars were Audis. Only two marques had more representatives in this made-up 150hp+ for under £2k class: Mercedes, with 30, and Vauxhall, perhaps surprisingly topping the list with 36, mainly Vectras and Insignias. Increase the minimum power filter to 200hp and Audi shoots to the top of the table with 13 of the 43 cars on sale.
Obviously a research project based on such a small sample of one website's classified ads section is of limited value, but the results do chime with Shed's lived experience of gawping at literally tens of thousands of ads over the last 13 and a bit years. Whether you see cheap and powerful German cars as good value or big trouble is up to you. All Shed will say is (1) that there are reasons why old Mercs and Audis that were once sought after are now cheap; and (2) that dealers price their stock realistically to get it off their forecourts.
Could this giveaway TT buck the 'I'm an old Audi, get me out of here' trend, though? All should be revealed at the MOT that will be coming up in the next three weeks. Last year's test showed nothing more than a couple of greased-up rear brake pipes and some plastic covers obscuring underside components. Shed is 100 per cent against the idea of covering up any underside components, unless it's Mrs Shed you're talking about in which case he is 100 per cent in favour of it being a legal requirement.
This TT's history doesn't scare him half as much as the sight of Mrs Shed's underside, just 6,000 miles having been covered in the last three years, equivalent to a weekly average of 40 miles. Unless there's been some sort of hidden disaster in the last 12 months, why wouldn't you be lucky? Dash displays do pixellate, heated seats sometimes don't heat, handbrake buttons sometimes break off in your hand and you'll need to replace the timing belt, water pump and coils every now and then, but otherwise, how bad could it be?
To answer such questions, Shed likes to look back in SOTW history. It's been exactly six years since he last told us about a TT 225. That was another 2003-registered car being 'sold to clear'. That car's buyer, and by the looks of it any subsequent buyers that may have come along, will have been happy enough with their clearance purchase because the car is still running about with only minor advisories popping up on its annual checkups. Its last test was in April '25 by which point it had done 165,000 miles, spookily close to the 169k total racked up by today's Shed, which we see is a 'part exchnage clerance'. Maybe that should say Clarence.
Whatever, will today's TT enjoy a similar fate to that other one, or does TT in this case stand for Too Tempting? Look at what you get. Permanent all-wheel drive, a permanently manual gearbox, a probably impermanent 0-60 time in the mid sixes, 30mpg, Shed's best guess of £430 for the annual tax, climate control, leather, heated seats (you hope) and a 50/50 split/fold rear seat to poke your bike in. Even if it only gets through one more test it looks like a lot of car for £600, with a quid left over to buy two-thirds of a Snickers bar. Or just save yourself the quid and nick the choglit like other people are doing now, apparently. Eeeh, what is happening in our world?
03 B6 A4 1.8 T Quattro Sport which was 190 bhp. Which was another decent car.
I certainly paid a lot more for both cars than this TT , if whoever bought it doesn't spend more than £500 when it's MOTs due it's been a cheap car even if they only get a year out of it & then scrap it. The cars done 170,000 miles of the engine has been maintained well it will easily do well over 200,000 miles.
Nice colour combination and the 225 to boot. £600 seems overly cheap, but with a strong community of knowledge around it and parts supply generally being good, if someone wanted to keep it going and enjoy it, they should be OK.
It's also easy to forget simple things, like day to day usability- yes, you can thrash around in these, but when you're not, the suspension setup when these were first produced is more livable than a lot of more recent stuff - I tend to pick up the keys to my mk1 3.2 TT most of the time for a long journey, rather than my mk3 TTS.
It was fortunate that the interior was a rather nice place to be since it left me stranded on several occasions. In my ownership, the warranty payments for repairs exceeded the purchase price of the car. It suffered an inexcusable list of failures for a modern, nearly new and low mileage car. Off the top of my head:
- dash pod failure ("They all do that sir")
- clutch pedal failed and went to the floor requiring a new pedal
- selector fork for third gear fractured needing a gearbox rebuild
- cam belt failed at 90k miles leaving me stranded on the M4 in a contraflow one wet winter's evening, necessitating an engine rebuild. The handbook stated it should be changed at 120k miles ("Sorry sir, it's actually a 120k kilometre service interval. 120k miles is a misprint - they changed the unit but not the number when they translated the owners manual from German")
- numerous O2 sensors
- almost weekly sidelight bulbs
I'm sure there were other things too.
Happened with the Porsche 914.
It's a similar (if not as stark) story with it's contemporary Porsche Boxster. Will they ever be rare enough that the good ones will be worth a lot?
Incidental, my boss in the early 00s wasn't prepared to sit out the wait list for a Boxster and so bought the TT 225, which even without the year long wait list was still the hot potato. I used to drive it when I ran his shop in the lake district for him and needed transport and it is still the only car whose seats ever gave me a bad back.
Was an utterly cool thing though and covered ground so quickly.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff