Hi,
I'm thinking very seriously of purchasing either a 2002 A4 3.0 Quattro, or the BMW 325 XI from roughly the same year.
I've read all the stuff about performance, safety, etc, etc. So I don't need a lot of input in that department.
However, I am having a hard time finding good data on the reliability / expense of repairs / maintenance of these cars. All the reviews I've seen are from the year they came out. Now that 3-4 years have elapsed since the release of the cars from that year I'd like to know which of these cars has proven itself to be more reliable, have fewer problems and is less expensive to fix.
A good friend who works in a used luxury car dealership, and is presumably neutral on the issue, advised me very seriously to go with the BMW as the Audi according to him "has a lot of problems and is more expensive to fix".
I'm aware that both are fairly high performance cars and as such will be more prone to problems than the 1994 toyota pickup (135,000 miles and NEVER been in the shop for anything besides maintenance) it will replace. But I would think at this time one would have shown itself to be more reliable than the other.
Does anyone have any input either way? Or better yet, some kind of long term comprehensive data on the web I can look at?