Review: Audi A6 at 100,000 miles

My 2000 Audi A6 2.7t quattro turned 100,000 miles a couple of weeks ago. I have owned it about three and a half years and still have another year and a half to pay for it. Unfortunately, the warranty has run out, there have been some expensive services, and the car guzzles premium gas, now at around $3 a gallon. Is this car worth every cent, or is it an albatross around my neck? Let’s see.

I bought the car in December of 2002 from Roger Beasley Audi in Austin, with 46,368 miles already on it. That left over 3600 miles of full factory warranty and free maintenance available. The car was also Certified Pre-Owned (CPO), so it had a two year extension of the factory warranty, though the extended warranty carried a $50 duductible for each dealer visit. Without hesitation, I can tell you that the CPO extended warranty saved my skin. For a mere $200 in duductibles, I had thousands upon thousands of dollars in repairs done to the A6. Most notably, the A6 had a turbo replacement (which actually involves the replacement of both turbos) which would have cost $3500-$4500. During that same service, my instrument cluster was replaced. That would have cost another $1000 or so. Instead, the total bill came to $50. Whew. However, it served as the first serious warning about the potential cost of this vehicle.

By the numbers:

Service & Maint is just that. Included are the repair or replacement of normal wear-and-tear items. The repair category is for items not considered normal wear-and-tear items. Warranty is for anything replaced under warranty. Other parts is for parts that I have purchased and installed on the car myself.

The first thing to notice is that the biggest ticket item was the regular 90,000 mile service, which includes an important timing belt replacement. In fact, almost all of the TCO (not counting fuel) is associated with regular maintenance and repair of normal wear-and-tear items. That makes the car seem reasonable, if not dependable. Now might be a good time to mention that this car has never stranded me. It has suffered vaccum leaks, suspension problems, electrical problems, and even blown turbos, but it has always started and made it to the dealer under its own power.

The cautionary tale is to be found under the warranty category. Without an extended warranty, just the turbo replacement would have been more than all of my service & maint costs put together, easily doubling or perhaps tripling my TCO. That’s important because that’s the position I find myself in now. Many of those expensive problems fixed under warranty are known issues with this model and therefore are potentially recurring issues. In other words, I can expect that my turbos and my instrument cluster (among other things) will fail in the future. If I weren’t still paying for the car or if I had extensive cash reserves, this might not be a problem, but I am and I don’t, so it is. My driver side window has been giving me problems, so I am on the verge of another repair.

Maintenance and repair (not counting tires) is costing over $1100 annually for this vehicle with some benefit from a warranty. I don’t see how that number will decrease, now that the warranty has expired.

Also, in mixed driving (admittedly with a lead foot), I am only getting 20.2 mpg. My car requires premium grade gasoline, so at today’s prices (temporarily down from $3+ to about $2.85/gallon) I’m paying around $50 for a fill-up. That is SUV territory. 

But is it worth it? Don’t I love this car? Yes and no. The A6 has been a very good car to me. As I mentioned, it has been very dependable. It is very, very fast and has excellent brakes. The A6 looks nice. It is elegant and graceful from some angles, though plain and dumpy from others. It’s homeliness (especially with the stock 16″ wheels) has probably saved me from undue attention and scrutiny from the local gendarmes, even though I bomb down the roads daily at menacing speeds. There is no other explanation for how many times I have blasted past the police and they couldn’t be bothered with me. I think my plain car must look amusing to them at speed, like a fat man rolling down a hill. Only once have I been cited in this car and it was an unusually flagrant violation, even for me.

The interior of the A6 is beautiful, comfortable, and practical. My passengers have plenty of space, even in the back seat. I have massive amounts of trunk space and with the rear seats folded down, I have even slept in my car, while comfortably stretched-out to my full length. I love the automatic, dual-zone HVAC that I never have to touch and the Audi/BOSE stereo sounds good. The cabin is very quiet, there are no squeaks or rattles from interior bits, and it feels dead solid, even at 100,000 miles. And though I have never had to test it, I feel very safe in the A6. It has the performance to get me out of most trouble and if that weren’t enough, I am surrounded by a solid, well-engineered structure with lots and lots of airbags, as well.

The problem is that many of these benefits are almost never actually realized. I talk about my passengers having plenty of room, but I almost never carry any passengers. Even my wife and I never take the A6, because her 4Runner is either better for the task at hand (i.e, grocery shopping), or simply because it’s cheaper to operate. So, the size and weight of the car, which contributes to the car’s problems (fuel economy, poor handling), isn’t even being utilized.

At 100,000 miles I must say that I’m inclined to move on. This isn’t news; according to the posts below, I have been inclined to move on since eight months after buying the car. It’s a good car, but it’s not hitting the sweet spot in my performance/dependability/utility/value/happiness matrixâ„¢. So, I’ll be looking for a car that is closer to that sweet spot soon. Stay tuned.

Here are some links to posts that I have previously published about this car in other forums:

• ’95 S6 vs. A6 2.7t (long) (05.06.03)
• Life with the 2.7t… (08.01.03) – “What do I need instead?”
• TWS Clockwise Track Report (11.18.03)
• …and a data point about the value… (12.19.03)
• Top o’ the mornin’ to ya… (03.17.04)
• Good morning (06.18.04) – You win some…
• A6 2.7t Question (06.23.04)
• Replacing both turbos (07.09.04) – “…getting rid of the A6.”
• Jimmy sure knows how to pick ’em… (01.26.05) – …you lose some

 jimmy