I think I might have actually bumped my overall enthusiasm with cars in general. The last few times have been leases , purchases of more conventional autos.
Now, deciding to finally buy a used car I couldn't fool myself that the Audi's had the greatest appeal to me. Two days ago I purchased a 1997 A6 2.8 quattro which caught my eye in a listing. Mileage was just above 81K, interior / exterior clean, which includes a few minor dings and one crack on the leather driver seat. Silver Metallic with a gray interior (did i mention leather ? ). As George Costanza said she's a sweet ride.
I was given a copy of the last service invoice (2 owners previously) which included new rotor, pads and struts. Nice start I thought. Reasonable service rates even when adding in the subtracted discount applied to this bill, the last owner is one of the employees at the dealer.
After test drive, it was brought over to a local Audi certified shop down the street from my home. First up was cracked brake hose lines. They will be dealt with this week (just in case of the worst possibility) even though there are no leaks. Next was some oil on the undercarriage, I believe by some joints (time to know cars beter), there is some oil wetness. The mechanic explained that this was a problem across all the 12 valve engines of that time. It made sense to me. He suggested that I am in no way near the time I will need to really consider it for repair. Car was on the lift, taken for ride by mechanic, codes run so I got a good feeling from the mechanic.
I was also quoted a price of $750 to replace the timing belt (the whole kit, pump , tensioners). This information also gave me a good feel for the risks of ownership.
Next I confirmed that the recalls (2) were in fact satisfied. Even better was the dealer has verbal confirmation the timing belt was already replaced (kit and all), he is trying to get the record pulled. Well that would be nice. The manual says the timing belt at 90K.
The dealer was a good guy I thought , they had all the cool little local business and BBB logos and whatever is required for those. I also received a 90 day limited powertrain warrant, redeemable coupon for emissions test (full price) and 90 days of parts at no greater then 20% above dealer cost
, well it sounds good :). I did some purusing around the forums here. I'm intrigued to consider at some point getting my hands deeper inside. I see some impressive maint / repair work done here by people who claim no extraordinary powers so perhaps I can muster some confidence and my wife allows me some tool spending money :).
Well thanks for letting me brag a bit. Any thoughts, feedback is appreciated.
stuart
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