B5 Audi

This question was just asked, like, two days ago:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/how-bad-are-the-early-2000s-audi-v6s/57144/page1/

Basically the 1.8T sucks but the V6 is a step above and is totally f*cking terrible. B5 A4s are awful cars in general, IMO, built like crap out of cheap parts. The late 90's/early 00's were some dark times for the VAG.

Some positively glowing reviews from the thread:

amg_rx7 wrote: I owned a 99 Audi A4 Avant (wagon) w/ the V6. The drivetrain really sapped the engine power. It felt boring as hell over 3,500 rpm. The pedals aren't well positioned for heel-toe. The suspension is prone to requiring frequent freshening. The timing belt was a $1,200 job. Frickin ridiculous. At 80k miles, the engine burned through a quart of oil every ~2,000 miles. No leaks. Not worth it.

NGTD wrote: I went through 2 complete front end rebuilds in about 100k kms (60k miles) of ownership on my 99 Passat. Run away from any B5 VWAG vehicle - and I mean RUN!!!

jr02518 wrote: If you are not willing to spend 200 to 300 a month over the course of a year, do not buy one. Our 1999 A6 2.8 has been a poster child for needing every gasket and seal replacement. The motors cook every thing under the hood. That said it has 186,000 miles on the original transmission. The only other thing that I have chased on the car is the front suspension. Our car has eaten its more than fair share of ball joints. The multi link system and the weight of the car might be at odds.

I had a '98 v6 for awhile. Not a bad car. Fuel mileage wasn't great. Mine had other issues, but I don't believe they were the car's fault.

My bad, somehow i missed that thread.

Mods can delete this thread if its gumming up the forums.

(i deleted my first post in hopes the thread would disappear.... ill post my questions in the other thread)

SlickDizzy wrote: Basically the 1.8T sucks but the V6 is a step above and is totally f*cking terrible.

The 1.8t is a decent engine and the 3 liter V6 sucks. The 30v 2.8 is pretty good. Both engines were offered concurrently from 2000 to 2003, when they stopped making the 3-liter again. I'm unsure what options you had to pick/elderly gypsies you had to piss off in order to get the 3-liter.

Compared to BMW and Mercedes offerings of the timeframe, these cars are bulletproof.

I prefer BMW problems, myself - outside of the two E46 years that had subframe issues, and the window regulator failures, at least you get a bulletproof drivetrain with a 300k timing chain. From my experience the Audis are worse - timing belts, sludge, front suspension, lower trim warping mysteriously, electrical issues, and if we're judging by the number of class-action lawsuits filed against each company, I'm totally correct...

More than anything I suffered crushing defeat at the hands of three Audis, one of which was a B5 1.8T and have pretty much sworn them off forever. They seem to hate me as much as I now hate them, like the ex who hated you from day one while you tried to "make it work"...which sucks because I think the original TT is one of the prettiest shapes penned in decades.

Wouldn't touch a post-W124 Benz with a 40-foot pole, though. Over-engineered in the worst possible way, with crap materials and special tools galore.

My '99 B5 1.8T and my brother's '02 were great cars. Both with the manual transmission and minimal issues. Sold the car to my sister in law and she sold it around 130k miles. It was on the original front control arms. Most people don't install the front arms correctly so they only last about 20k. If you do it right they'll last a long time.

The sludge issues on the 1.8T are directly related to owner neglect. I always ran M1 15W-50 and the engine was clean. I was able to get decent power out of my 1.8T and I'm sure it's even cheaper to do so now.

I felt like it was a very well built car that didn't take kindly to bad owners. They aren't Corollas.

bluesideup wrote: I felt like it was a very well built car that didn't take kindly to bad owners. They aren't Corollas.

That's a good point. When they were new, they were $25k cars, extremely cheap for a "luxury brand" car.

I suppose my views are colored by having a customer base composed of people who do proactive maintenance instead of reactive.

Indeed, my own experience is colored by the fact that I can only work on cars I or my friends own...I'm sure with a caring owner they are not as bad. But my (usually craigslist-sourced) experiences as the third, fifth, whatever owner of Audis has caused me enough heartache to bitch about them whenever I can. My 200 turbo was the best by a long shot and even it had really bizarre weird problems, like the windows that would come and go at random times and the really effing difficult front timing belt.

/bashing over

I remain cautiously open to the right TT if one shows up in my price range.

Knurled wrote:

bluesideup wrote: I felt like it was a very well built car that didn't take kindly to bad owners. They aren't Corollas.

That's a good point. When they were new, they were $25k cars, extremely cheap for a "luxury brand" car.

Umm... My '98 A4 Avant 2.8 quattro 5 spd came with all (most?) of the previous owner's documents, including the original sticker: which was over $38,000. About the only option it didn't have was navigation.

Granted, my g/f paid about $40k for her M3 in '95, so I guess the A4 was cheaper...

I own a 2001. Ordered it from the factory in April 2000, delivered in June. 1.8T Quattro Sport 5-speed. A few unusual (for the US) bits like cloth sport seats (same seat as the S4 but witl cloth rather than Alcantra.

When still new I swapped in "Eurosport" springs, Neuspeed swaybars and Bilstein sport struts and added a set of Michelin 18x225-40 tires and SSR Integral wheels for summer driving. Late summer 2000 I had APR chip the ECU and eventually went with their 94 octane program for 215HP/235lbft.

Its got 85k miles and has been an awsome car as far as I am concerned. More maintenance than say a Pac rim car, but a MUCH more involving driving experience than a Lexus or the like. Back when I did such things with this car I could usually beat S4 and TT at autocrosses.

The pedals are positioned wrong for left foot, trail braking, heel/toe - for me anyway - seems the brake pedal is too far ight and the gas/brake (with the stock pads) are spread too far apart. Besides Audi added the throttle shutdown feature - shuts throttle if both the throttle and brake pedal were pressed.

Personally I would never buy a used A4 of this era B5 or B6 as a DD because the maintenance costs will probably run about the same as financing and buying a new more modest car, and there are a number of issues that owners may or may not have properly dealt with such as the timing belt replacement interval and the 1.8T sludging. Who would deliberately run non-synthetic oil in a turbo car for 10k miles? AoA, thats who. Not me, top quality synthetic changed at least every 6k or annually from day 1. And it was widely known among enthusiasts that the 80k timing belt interval was optimistic by about double - after 60k the belt is a ticking time bomb.

my 1.8t B5 Avant quattro was an electrical nightmare eventually.

The exhaust broke and it caused the ECU to fry. go figure...

I've put hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles on B5 A4/S4's. Never had a serious issue with any of them. Pedals are fine for heel/toe for me.

Maintenance is the key with one of these. Buy one that's been neglected and you'll be sorry. As others have said, they're not a corolla, but they cost no more to maintain than any other German luxury car of the same vintage.

docwyte wrote: I've put hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles on B5 A4/S4's. Never had a serious issue with any of them. Pedals are fine for heel/toe for me. Maintenance is the key with one of these. Buy one that's been neglected and you'll be sorry. As others have said, they're not a corolla, but they cost no more to maintain than any other German luxury car of the same vintage.

I think the other key to it is to resist the urge to buy that $600 chip promising an extra 100 horsepower. The turbos are small, to make that much power you're spinning them way too fast, and that kills them. I used to own a B5 S4 (bought it new in 2000, traded for a B6 S4 Avant in 2006), and while I saw lots of people kill the turbos, they'd all chipped the car.

The 2.7T will make a ton of power, but it needs upgraded turbos to do it reliably.

My wife has driven an '00 A4 2.8 manual quattro for about 4-1/2 years. I've fixed a few little things - nothing major - but we paid actual money to have the timing belts/cam seals/control arms/shocks done. the new stuff was Bilstein HDs + some Vogtland 1" drop springs - it's nice to drive now.

That said , I wouldn't want to remove the transaxle.

I believe it was over $40k new - we bought it for $7500 w/ 75k miles. Around the DC Metro they're cheaper than Civics.

Regarding "Audi problems vs. BMW problems" I've been driving and developing an e36 M3 track car for about 5 years and have done about every job there is on it - it's an easy car to work on save the rear hub bearings. I like it so much I bought an inline-6 manual e39 for my daily, cause it's essentially the same car.

Is the maintenance bad besides engine components? Reason I ask is because I have looked at B5 Passats but more specifically the TDI's only

TDi B5's (known as B5.5's after 2001.5 update) were the only the last year or two of production and the later cars were supposed to be better.

They have a rare TDi motor if I recall - it was a 2.0L not a 1.9.

Some of the design of that era of Passat is just stupid - who puts a Body Control Computer underneath the feet of the driver where salt water is going to go in the winter??? All of the wires to the BCM go down from the A-pillar and break right where they go past the dead pedal.

We put almost 100k trouble free miles on our B5.5 1.8T Passat. All it needed was normal maintenance. Had to buy 1 set of tires, 1 set of brakes, timing belt/water pump and 1 $100 remanned MAF.

Jaynen wrote: Is the maintenance bad besides engine components? Reason I ask is because I have looked at B5 Passats but more specifically the TDI's only

Bizarre electrical issues.