I’m thinking about buying a second car and I’m particularly interested in a 1995 Audi 90 Quattro. I have read up on the car and everyone loves the way the car drives, but every single complaint is about how expensive repairs are. This would be my daily driver, so (frequent) repairs are not something that I’m interested in. I went and took it for a test drive and it drove great. Here’s what I know so far:
Good
not a single rust spot on the entire body
paint is damn near perfect aside from a melon sized spot on rear bumper where paint is chipping off (bumper not cracked)
was owned by a elderly man from sewickly who had every single factory maintenance done (documented)
second owner has kept the car in amazing shape as well
interior is in perfect shape, not a single crack in the leather
quattro system is said to be amazing
clean engine bay
clutch still felt strong and shifted smoothly
Bad
expensive repairs
have been told by a few people that audi’s have lots of problems
car had winter tires which would need to be replaced with summer tires (winter tires still good)
Other stuff about the car
108,000 miles
power everything
asking price: $4800
kbb value: $5300
The guy selling the car said he was flexible on the price which is good. It’s been up for sale for 2 months and the guy only had 1 person that had been previously interested, and he didn’t even look at the car in person.
I’m not worried about purchase price or insurance costs so much, I’m more worried about the reliability of the car. Any one with experience with Audi’s (or VW’s for that matter), please lend me your insight on these cars.
I’m just basing it off of KBB values. I realize it’s not the fastest car in the world, but I don’t really need that either. It’s just a daily driver, my toy will be in the garage for the weekends. Having AWD for the winter would be a nice for piece of mind.
I think they are expensive for repairs if you take them to a dealer to do it. DIY isn’t any harder than any other car. The quattro system is all mechanical (no computer involved) and rarely has problems. Parts aren’t that bad; really no more than VW and most parts can be had at VW dealers cheaper than Audi dealers. There is also a large network of Audi enthusiasts that can get parts worldwide very cheap. In fact, we have over 80 people alone and almost 100 Audi’s from old school to newest RS4 registered for Carlisle in two weeks and most are pretty local.
2002 B6 A4’s are cheaply found because that year did have some problems, and even though body style is the same as 2003 through 2005, the 2002 held over some electrical components from earlier B5 models and isn’t as mod-friendly due to that. They also had oil sludge problems because they’d used smaller filters that were corrected with large ones in 2003 model year. 2002’s are found cheap for a lot of reasons.
There is a large following of older Audi’s in Pittsburgh and I’m sure you could hook up with them for advice. Both audizine.com and audiworld.com have lots of people who’d give advice.
Don’t be too forthcoming on where you’re getting that car from, though, as a lot of us will buy it out from under you, lol.
Bottom line is, like any model/make of car, there can be good years and bad. To lump them all together is like saying Fords suck because of the Pinto. My only worry in this case is that Audi owners are tight-knit. If there is a strong car out there for sale, it usually gets bought up real fast. Audi owners collect even the cars that those outside of the Audi world would never want. So if someone else hasn’t bought this, either it is that well-kept of a secret, or there is good reason why no one from within the Audi community has already bought it.
But really, Audi repairs and upkeep are only really expensive for those who buy a car and always take it back to a dealer for something as trivial as an oil change, and those without the knowledge to actually search online for cheaper parts. If you DIY on most repairs, become friendly with the Audi community, and find a good Euro-shop for the stuff you can’t do, they aren’t that expensive.
My '91 100 is still kicking at about 300k miles (TMU). It does need more maintenance than my MR2, but that’s understandable considering the mileage.
Repairs don’t seem to cost any more than any other car if you do the work yourself. Parts can be found pretty cheap if you look in the right place. I just put loaded rebuilt calipers on the front of mine for $40 apiece from RockAuto. The brake pads themselves usually cost this much alone because they have wear sensors in them.
90’s are good cars. Body is galvanized so rust is not a big issue on them unless lousy body repairs have been done. Drivetrain is bulletproof. Mechanical repairs really aren’t that expensive, the biggest problem is having someone that doesn’t know anything about Audi’s working on one. If you’re not doing the repairs yourself, find a knowledgable Audi tech to take care of it for you. Don’t go to generic shop xyz down the street 'cause the’re gonna cost you a lot more in botched/ unneccessary repairs in the end.
Buy a Bentley service manual even if you’re not doing the work yourself-- that way you can educate yourself about the car.
When was the timing belt last replaced? Have the cats ever been replaced? The cats are known to clog on the V6’s, and there are two of them, so make sure you know what shape the pair on the car are in so you can negotiate the price accordingly.
Price is a little high, but if it’s in great condition with all maintainance done it will sell for that. I just sold my '90 90Q 20V (5 cyl.) with 172,000 for $3000.00 to the first buyer that looked at it.
I had a 1988 Audi 80 Q and I have never had a more solid car than that car was. I don’t care what anyone says- parts for those are abundant in junk yards and they will run forever- even if you don’t want them to. (All i wanted mine to do was die so I had a reason to buy a new car— and no matter how hard i beat on it, it never did.)
Haha! I’ve heard both sides of the story. Some people have said they have more problems than they can count, and other have said that they have never had a single problem. I absolutely love the car, and that was pretty much the only thing holding me back. I’m going to go take the car for another test drive today so by the end of the day I should know if I own another car. Thanks for your comments!
Oh, and I don’t want the 90Q to die, I need it to be a reliable DD for quite some time!
To be honest, its lkike any kind of car- If its been treated nicely, you will never have a problem. If it was eat on for 10- 20 years, everything is bound to break at some point.
