Audi A4 3.2 FSI | Shed of the Week
The V6-engined, manual A4 wagon seemed a little incongruous in its day - now it's shed gold
There was an incredibly rare event in the Shed household this week. Mrs Shed told a joke. It began innocently enough when she mentioned to Shed that she’d seen a couple of border collies mooching around the village last Monday. That sounded perfectly normal to Shed as he knows the dogs in question and in fact often encourages them to relieve themselves against the resin lions outside Bob the Binman’s bungalow.
Then Mrs Shed said that she was surprised to see the mutts out and about, what with it being Ban Collie Day and everything. Unfortunately, Shed’s failure to laugh or even recognise this as a witticism coincided with Mrs Shed’s weekly polish-up of her sports saucepans. Next thing he knew, he was leaning unsteadily against the Welsh dresser rubbing his head and wondering how, after so many decades of comedic austerity, he was supposed to know that his missus was going to crack a funny.
Shed isn’t taken by surprise much these days. He knows that someone or something will always come along to make last week’s outrage look like this week’s normal. The most recent occasion was of course Jaguar’s announcement of its Type 00 project. Some time prior to that - around twenty years prior to be more specific - one of his eyebrows forced its way up through some of the crust of grime on his forehead when Audi said that they were going to be selling 3.1-litre V6-engined A4s. It seemed like an odd thing to be doing in what was by then a well-established age of planetary conservation. Shed thought that the days of shoving big, powerful engines up relatively small cars had ended yonks previously when Jeff Uren stopped putting Essex 3.0-litre lumps into Cortinas and Escorts, so he was convinced that that actually was a joke.
But it wasn’t. In 2004 Audi inserted what they called a 3.2 FSI V6 (the actual capacity was 3,123cc) into the facelifted, jawdrop-grilled B7 A4 that had arrived in the latter part of that year. The naturally aspirated direct injection V6 produced 252hp at 6,000rpm and 243lb ft at 3,250rpm. Shed isn’t sure if the FWD-only version of the 3.2 was ever put on sale in the UK (probably not) but with the quattro AWD system in place, the A4 3.2’s 0-62mph time was 6.4 seconds, which made it nearly as fast as a Lamborghini Miura and a bit more useful for carrying the shopping. Assuming, of course, that you were handy with a 6-speed manual box, which is what our car comes with. That puts it firmly into unicorn territory. As far as Shed can see, which admittedly isn’t very far, the folk who run the how many left websites don’t even list it, let alone hazard a guess as to the number that might be remaining.
Anyway, the 3.2 A4 definitely did exist as you can see here. It wasn’t a slow car either. Besides that six-second 0-62 time, its top speed was electronically limited to 155mph in either auto or manual guise. Sadly its fuel consumption wasn’t similarly limited, the average being a wince-inducing 26mpg, with much worse than that available if you fancied it. CO2 was emitted at a fairly anti-social rate of 252g/km. That would normally condemn it to VED Band L at £760pa, but because our A4 was registered a few months before the cutoff date of 23 March 2006 it nips smartly into the near-mystical Band K*, bringing the tax bill down to £445. Shed is determined to understand the UK’s VED system before he dies. After that he’s not bothered.
Our car was in the MOT wars in late 2024 when a bushel of expensive-sounding defects and advisories came to light, including a broken rear spring, engine malfunction light, trashed tyres, corrosion to the rear subframe and (leaking) exhaust, and a front ball joint that looked like it was about to fall off. The mileage then was 145,000. By the time the next test came around, twelve months and 19,000 miles later, all that stuff had been sorted, so it’s a clean ticket you’ll be looking at until this November at least.
The 3.2 did have a reputation for chucking its timing chain tensioner. Despite the relative ease of working on this engine, the cost of mending that issue can easily leap into four figures. Shed’s hope for this A4 is that its high-ish mileage of 170k will mean that someone else will have already footed the bill for that work. Carbon buildup and an occasional thirst for oil might be ongoing issues. Otherwise this is a pretty rugged, understressed sort of powertrain that should see you right for a good while yet.
You’ll feel a bit special too because, as we've established, there aren’t many of these about. Shed found a 100,000-mile ’06 car elsewhere on the internet at a BIN price of £3,500, a 114k example for the same money, and a dealer’s 87,000-mile ‘07 example that had supposedly sold at some unspecified date for just under £6,000. All of those were autos. Our shed is leggier, but it is a manual, it doesn’t have black glass, black wheels or vape vents, and the asking price is just £1,900. Not bad for something that's as rare as a Mrs Shed joke, and nowhere near as life-threatening.
Just looked at the ad and that roof liner is interesting.
I had a B6 A4 1.8T 190 bhp quattro estate and it was one of the worst cars I've owned. Slow, thirsty, heavy on tyres, not great to drive and crap when we had a sprinkle of snow. I traded a miley but good EP3 for it (growing family) and it still saddens me. Put me off Audis for good, this one looks like expense waiting to happen.
Also, as a previous poster asked, it's not an R32 in a different costume. It's a complete different engine. Not unsurprising given VAG were going crazy in the period Piech was in charge. Vr5,6, V6,V8,W8,V10,V12Tdi,W12,W16 to name few different engines of the period.
I had a B6 A4 1.8T 190 bhp quattro estate and it was one of the worst cars I've owned. Slow, thirsty, heavy on tyres, not great to drive and crap when we had a sprinkle of snow. I traded a miley but good EP3 for it (growing family) and it still saddens me. Put me off Audis for good, this one looks like expense waiting to happen.
And to answer Shed's question the UK did have FWD models with this engine using the 6 & 7 speed CVT 'boxes, but not sure if any were supplied as manuals or proper autos.
I had one fabricated for £1500 and it was while it was up on ramps that the extent of the underbody corrosion was evident. It was horrific. Only after getting the thing was I told Never buy a car from Scotland; looking through the history it became clear our one spent most of its life in Aberdeen.
I quickly punted it on and consider it a lucky escape. Our previous 2002 B6 manual quattro sport 3.0 v6 felt better in every way. That was a great car.
That said I have had a couple of happy years in an even cheaper Lexus that had suffered similar. Shocking cosmetically but good as gold behind the wheel (where you couldn't see it). If it's cheap enough who cares..
Its practical and always thought these were a decent looking car but I would be very wary of it as a budget minded purchase as Audis of this era can be very needed, to be fair its 21 years only and has 170k so if you didnt expect a bit of that you would be a bit daft.
The paint mismatch and baggy interior are forgivable on a cheap car but they are a bit offputting.
Will be heroically thirsty I expect, quite a desirable car in 2005 but not for me in 2026.
Taking out the equation the pretty awful engine, the B7 is a great looking car I reckon but theres got to be better options, maybe with the 2l TFSI or even a diesel smoker for that money...
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