advice on buying an A4

hey,

looking for some tips on things i should be aware of. i'm (possibly) going from an '85 Jeep CJ7 to a 97/98 A4, so any advice is a welcome bridge across the performance/construction/purpose knowledge gap

general questions: any known mechanical issues? avg fuel economy? options to stay away from?

more to the point, i've found one that seems to fit my bill for price/year/yada,yada: "97 A4 1.8T QUATTRO, bucket seats, heated seats, a/c, AM/FM stereo, CD player, power everything, upgraded turbo, suspension, muffler system... $8000 obo(CDN)"

now i know as soon as i see "upgraded" i'm gonna want to see reciepts of who it was installed by and when, but does this sound like an alright deal? doesn't appear to be any body damage and not sure how many km's on it, but that can factored in when/if i go look at it

thanks again, looking fwd to getting my own A4 to tear into!

adam

Adam,

It's best to get Audi to inspect the car. I just purchased a 99.5 1.8TQM/bose/sports seats/ sports pack in volcanic black with 89km from a garage. 1 1/2 weeks later I find out that the bottom control arms need replacing to the sum of $2k cdn and wheel bearings (2 started making a noise 2 weeks afterwards) of $500 cdn (from Audi). I was going to get it inspected but it the garage too was far away and it was ultra clean so I let it go.

As a summary check ...

All control arms & sway bars. front tie rod ends wheel bearings Timing belt - do it at 110-120kms (I will do mine next year under 100km on the safe side). Coil packs

check

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Once everything is done - it's an amazing car! Just make sure you have some money in the bank - and to think I gave up my perfectly reliable 2001 Accord EXman for this!

I managed to get the garage out of sheer "goodwill" to cough up half of the bill on the control arms / tie rod ends - But still a painful lesson!

Oh and it cost me another $90 for the wheel alignment afterwards at Audi once this garage did everything! Then Audi mentioned that the top control arms are now bad after the work was done. So back to the garage to get the top control arms fixed to another 1k cdn, and now I will have to pay for another $90 wheel alignment!!!

Anyway, thats my 2cents worth - because that's all I have left in the bank.

Darren