Advice on A3 and Common Issues

[wildwildwentz]

Hey Everyone. I know there might be a thread that may have gone over this but I wanted to see if I could get more direct answers and hear from people's experiences with these cars. A friend of mine is looking to buy a 2009 A3 and since I drive a 2009 A4 he was asking me some questions on what to look out for. Im fairly certain the two 2.0T engines are mostly similar but again I want to hear from people that drive an A3. What are some issue and faults we should look out for? Im familiar with the oil consumption the A4 has, as well as the carbon build up that all direct injection engines get. Any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

This is the car we're going to look at:

https://www.autoauctiongroupinc.com/pre-owned-cars/detail/2009-Audi-A3/622049?utm_campaign=cargurus_listings&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=cargurus.com

[ladsjohn]

That's a pretty broad topic but I'll give you my experience based on a 2010 A3 with DSG. The price seems a little high on the one you posted imho, though those are some low low miles.
I bought mine last year from a private party and he had a very thorough and complete service history including carbon cleaning around 60K miles, DSG service at 40K miles. Nothing else major that I recall. Car had 100K when I bought it.
Since I've owned it I had some misfires which ended up causing me a bellyache. In hindsight, the misfires (and associated CEL) were due to the PCV failing. They subsequently caused a rear main seal and timing cover gasket leak.
It's in pieces at the moment while I do the rear main and a new flywheel while I'm in there.
I would check what service history this car has, try to negotiate a transmission service into the deal if it hasn't been done since new and also replace the PCV with a OE or OEM part asap as cheap insurance.

Good luck!

[Silicon Voodoo]

it's an EA888 1st gen (or 2nd gen if you consider as a successor to EA113). So it has the oval pistons and the fragile rings. I'd stay away from that. or negociate 4k ponds.