Hey guys I need some advice. I'm getting from any and anyone I talk to about this, I figured you guys would understand.

I'm about to pick up a 1.8T B5 A4 (2000)
- 161km on the clock
- 8 previous owners, 4 were dealers (auctions in the space of a year)
- Bone stock

The car is absolutely mint, the dealer I'm buying from seems reliable, the car shifts amazing, there have been no accidents - i've done both a gov't search and a carfax.

Problem is everyone including my dad is telling me this is a bad bad bad idea, but I want this car. Basically I need to know what happens maintenance wise around 160k? If something like the timing belt hasn't been changed yet would it have snapped already? Fuel pump? oil pump? Clutch? Turbo? I'm trying to get the dealer to get as many service records as possible, If I can't get any I will most likely pass on it I guess. Any help/advice is appreciated. The car comes with a 3 year warantee from the dealer if that means anything.

 

No help yet? i guess it's always hard to tell someone what they should / shouldn't buy. I just went through this myself... basically had to stop asking people what they thought or I would have ended up with a Chevy Suburban

It comes down to two things, price and you're gut feeling. That car would be a bargain by anyones standards if it were $1... conversely nobody would pay $30k for it.

I'm not an Audi guru, heck I just bought my 98 A4 a few days ago.. I will say this though, I had a short list of vehicles I liked and it took me about 2 months before I came across my A4, soon as I saw it I knew I would buy it.

 

Hey there

You can also check the service records in the glove box (if they're there). If it was properly documented the book should be loaded with stamps in the maintenance manual. That should give you some peace of mind. If that doesn't turn anything up, you can look to that car history you got access to.

With the carfax handy, what you can do is call up the last dealer that had it for any length of time and pick their brains about what sort of work had been done on the car. They can't release or email/fax you the records per se, but they can discuss its history over the phone without sharing 'private' information such as previous owners and that sort of thing. As long as you're clear that you're researching it before a potential purchase they're usually pretty understanding about it.

Usually if it goes through dealers hands it just means it didn't sell on one lot, got sold on auction and ended up on another car lot for a month. They didn't sell it there; it went back on auction and got sold again, and so forth and so forth...