Hey /o/, I'm looking to buy a 1999 Audi B4 Avant. Does anyone

Look up parts that commonly fail on those models and, since that's a 20+ year old car, see what the mileage is like, and decide whether the engine still has a lot of miles left in it. Unless you're willing to do a swap.

Let me tell you a story. Not going to greentext because I'm on my phone.

After driving a shitheap 93 cavalier, I wanted something fancier. Not necessarily fast, just more luxurious then that pile. I was in your same position, what could go wrong?

Thanks to the blunder that was cash for clunkers, the used car market was garbage.

But, I found a 99' A4 Quattro, "well maintained"
There were a few scratches and the airbag light was on, but nothing else seemed amiss, and it was rust free.

The first year it ran great, then all hell broke loose afterward.

One day it wouldn't start. VW dealer looked at it, said it was a bad starter.

They would have charged $700.
Did some shit myself and said fuck it.

Later on, the transmission decided to randomly go into limp mode. Water leaked into the connector and fucked shit up. Fixed it I guess.

Shitty pneumatic locks all quit working. Windows stopped working as well.

Blew out a turbo, and then later on everything just died, would not turn over. Upon further inspection, as in , taking the entire fucking front of the car off, the serpentine belt shredded, worked its way behind the front engine cover, and then fucked up the timing belt. Belt vales galore

Top end rebuild- 800$ at a specialty shop, misc parts to replace a bunch of stuff for the timing belt was another 200.

I get the valves back, put everything back together, violent shaking. cont

>>14060176
Turns out the shop didn't align the top end right so it was out of time. They paid for another guy I trust to take it all apart and adjust.

I get the car back, its still running like shit, misfiring likely do to a vacuum leak somewhere. There are a billion fucking lines.

For shits and giggles I unplugged the MAF and it runs better.

tl;dr while the AWD is amazing, the audi's are shit meme is true and I was a diehard fanboy.

AVOID

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>>14060188
Oh and I forgot to mention that the reason the serpentine belt did this was some chucklefuck put the wrong pulley on at some point before I purchased it, likely because something broke and a fucktard slapped one on that looked good enough.

Heres the clusterfuck

>>>14059536
1.8t
Replace coil packs -they go out very often. Replace spark plugs every 25k .audis only use copper core plugs will run like crap on other plugs.
Make sure timing belt was done or do it
They suffer from lots of random electrical problems
Vacuum locks suck
Find a good audi/vw mechanic

>>14059536
It depends on the reliability or parts cost.

Mecerdes: Reliable but parts will send you bankrupt
BMW: Fairly reliable and parts are abundant and cheap
Audi: Pretty unreliable in my experience and what I hear from others

So I'd avoid Audi OP. If you want some good German wagons, have a look into 80s/90s Mercedes and BMWs.

Sounds like dude above just got a car that was maintained by an idiot.

I also had a 99 Avant 3.0, and all I did was the timing service. It ran perfectly for the entire time I had it. Only issue was bad pixels on the display.

>>14060269
>Sounds like dude above just got a car that was maintained by an idiot.
Or 20 year old german cars are generally garbage

>It ran perfectly for the entire time I had it.
How long, and when did you get rid of it? For all we know it fell apart soon after.

I've had 2 of them. Bought 1 for 100$ and bought another for 200$. A 99 and a 2000, both 1.8t and both running. They hold no value whatsoever so if it break prepare to take a huge loss when selling. On my local cl there are nice ones for very expensive then there are ones that would've been nice but the transmission shit out and they're selling it for 150$. If you can wrench and are prepared for annoying German design, go for it. If not it's not worth it, you'll pay luxury repair prices for a car that isn't worth shit. Ie) that starter that costs 700$ to install.

But used parts on craigslist seem to be abundant

>>14060364
most dont work, and the important stuff that can go wrong is still ridiculously expensive and all have way over 100k miles. the gen is just too old.

I have a b5 2.8 sedan. It's great but things cost more. One thing, it has never left me stranded. Find a good mechanic instead of a dealer. I'd love the avant if I could find one. Don't get the turbo model. Even though you can tune them to 400 hp, they won't be fun to fix.
If you really want a tuner, get the 1.8t but expect twice the maintenance

>>14060377
That statement is incredibly invalid. While they are getting old, we weren't even talking about specific parts. The cars I had everything worked fine when I bought them. One was just absent of any gas and the other was hit in the rear.

>>14060267
this. the parts are cheaper in germany though. i recommend a volkswagen. they look good and the replacement parts are not as expensive as parts from e.g. an audi

>>14061180
Can confirm, older VWs are breddy gud. Kinda boring, but the 2.slow and 1.9TDI just refuse to die.

Seems like generally negative opinions. Anyone have a good alternative then? Trying to keep the cost under $6000

people just say european cars are expensive to maintain to keep poor people from buying them

I've paid less to maintain my audi s8 than everyone I know has paid for their american shitboxes

only exception is japanese cars and that's because they actually put a ton of thought into how simple they can make the scheduled maintenance. not just "hurr durr 15k oil changes and everything else has lifetime fluid!!1!"

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>>14059536
I have owned a 2002 A4 2.5tdi v6 avant for nearly 5 years, ask me anything
pic related

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get an e46 touring

>cheap parts
>look at it. That car is a fucking 2002. How many cars that age still look that good?
>E46s are generally reliable and cheap provided you work on them yourself
>super easy and logical to work on unlike vw

>>14061548
How many miles were on it when you bought it? Of the problems people listed in this thread, how many are legitimate concerns? Would you recommend getting the car I listed in the original post?