01-11-2012, 03:55 PM
I keep records of my Audi. It's now 8 years old, I've owned it for 4. Despite high repair costs the allroad is the best car I've ever owned.
I do most of my own work but parts are still expensive. Last year I put about $800-900 of work into it (excluding oil and other normal maintenance). That is not uncommon and German cars are not as popular as Camrys and Accords so parts are pricey and take longer to get. Next year it'll be at least the same amount. I'm due to replace all 8 control arms and I need to look to see if the steering needs to be repaired, or rebuilt.
Rubber doesn't last forever. It wears out. I'm replacing a lot of original parts that made it this far. 8 years for a piece of rubber on a car, is not bad. Repair costs are high but hopefully (knock on wood) I won't need to do a lot of these repairs again for possibly the lifetime of the car.
Average over my ownership period, probably about $600 a year. The only electrical problem I've ever had on that car, is a switch had to be replaced. $60, 5 minutes.
I've had a Volvo too and the build quality was so much poorer than the Audi it's laughable. I bought it with 8K left on the original factory warranty and ended up taking it in for warranty work 5 times in 6 months. I traded it in. Even with the negative equity I think I came out ahead. YMMV. It was a 2003 S60.
You can easily get 6-8 years of worry free use out of a new Audi. I'd get an extended warranty (just make sure you get a good one, check enthusiast websites/forums) to 100K. Past that, you'd better either have a good set of tools and some experience, or a big checkbook.
I do most of my own work but parts are still expensive. Last year I put about $800-900 of work into it (excluding oil and other normal maintenance). That is not uncommon and German cars are not as popular as Camrys and Accords so parts are pricey and take longer to get. Next year it'll be at least the same amount. I'm due to replace all 8 control arms and I need to look to see if the steering needs to be repaired, or rebuilt.
Rubber doesn't last forever. It wears out. I'm replacing a lot of original parts that made it this far. 8 years for a piece of rubber on a car, is not bad. Repair costs are high but hopefully (knock on wood) I won't need to do a lot of these repairs again for possibly the lifetime of the car.
Average over my ownership period, probably about $600 a year. The only electrical problem I've ever had on that car, is a switch had to be replaced. $60, 5 minutes.
I've had a Volvo too and the build quality was so much poorer than the Audi it's laughable. I bought it with 8K left on the original factory warranty and ended up taking it in for warranty work 5 times in 6 months. I traded it in. Even with the negative equity I think I came out ahead. YMMV. It was a 2003 S60.
You can easily get 6-8 years of worry free use out of a new Audi. I'd get an extended warranty (just make sure you get a good one, check enthusiast websites/forums) to 100K. Past that, you'd better either have a good set of tools and some experience, or a big checkbook.