I'm thinking about storing the convertible I bought in April -- a 2005 Mustang that I bought for about $14K. It's just too nice to subject the roof, etc. to the salt of Wisconsin winter roads and it's RWD (although it has traction control and ABS).
So that would require that I buy a winter driver. Today I saw a super clean Audi A6 3.0 Quattro. It's a 2002 with 82000 miles. It's had 1 owner and the CarFax report is clean. Pretty much loaded for a 2002 model. New Optimo H418 tires (16 inch).
Anyhow, any thoughts? They're selling it for about $10500, which means I'd probably offer something like $9500 and see where that went, provided I drove it and liked it. It would come with a 3000 mile/3 month warranty and it's the same place I bought my Mustang, which has just been a perfect experience for me.
__________________ I'm running for TalkBoard. See who I am here. Vote here.
I'm thinking about storing the convertible I bought in April -- a 2005 Mustang that I bought for about $14K. It's just too nice to subject the roof, etc. to the salt of Wisconsin winter roads and it's RWD (although it has traction control and ABS).
So that would require that I buy a winter driver. Today I saw a super clean Audi A6 3.0 Quattro. It's a 2002 with 82000 miles. It's had 1 owner and the CarFax report is clean. Pretty much loaded for a 2002 model. New Optimo H418 tires (16 inch).
Anyhow, any thoughts? They're selling it for about $10500, which means I'd probably offer something like $9500 and see where that went, provided I drove it and liked it. It would come with a 3000 mile/3 month warranty and it's the same place I bought my Mustang, which has just been a perfect experience for me.
I had a 2002 A6 4.2 3/4 years ago. It had around 50-60k and I bought it with a certified warranty from an Audi dealer. It was in the shop 13 times for the 12 months that I had it. Nothing major went wrong with it, but the check engine light kept coming on for different small things (lose hoses etc.). I may have just had a lemon, but I would absolutely not recommend buying one. It was a nice car when I had i, though.
Beware of high mileage used Audis. I have known 2 people that have had similar bad experiences with late 1990's, early 2000's used Audis.
Audi has made up lots of ground in terms of quality on their newer models. The older ones had a tendency to die hard.
Programs: UA 1K MM UGS, CO Plat, SPG Plat, HH Gold, KAL MC, Marriott Gold, Hotel Okura, Sixt Plat, Hertz 5*
Posts: 321
I got a 2002 A6 Wagon with 124,000 miles on it now. Only problem I had was with uneven tire wear, that an alignment fixed. Bought it used 3 years ago and very happy with it.
I have never used winter tires in Wisconsin. That doesn't concern me. RWD? That concerns me.
In a snow season, good winter tires make sense. Perhaps less so if you have occasional unpredictable snow and ice, in which case all-season tires chosen specifically to have good (for an all-season tire) snow and ice performance as well as good other performance may be a better choice.
The November 2009 issue of Consumer Reports has a huge tire test of all-season, performance all-season, and winter tires. They made it so that the category ratings (e.g. dry braking, wet braking, handling, snow, ice, etc.) between these three classes of tires are comparable. Most winter tires do better than most all-season tires in snow and ice, but worse in non snow and ice conditions (however, some of the worst winter tires were worst in snow and ice than most of the all-season tires).
In that magazine listing, the Hankook Optimo H418 was one of the lowest rated performance all-season tires in both H and V speed ratings, although it does ok in snow and ice (not awful, but not as good as the best winter tires in those categories). I would not be surprised if the seller just put the cheapest available new tires on to conceal whatever stories the wear patterns on the old tires would tell.
Winter Tires for that car are about $100 to $140 each (doing a quick search on Tirerack). I seriously would not base my decision on the tires the car has, if the car is what you want, and it's from a place you trust, then the extra $400 or $500 to replace the tires should you need to is worth it.
Winter Tires for that car are about $100 to $140 each (doing a quick search on Tirerack). I seriously would not base my decision on the tires the car has, if the car is what you want, and it's from a place you trust, then the extra $400 or $500 to replace the tires should you need to is worth it.
It's not the tires -- it's more a question of reliability and how expensive it would be to maintain. I'd probably want to keep the car at least 5 years or so (30K to 40K miles, mainly in the winter). And I'm not really worried about it. We had a leased BMW 330xi that we drove on the factory run flats all winter without problems.
__________________ I'm running for TalkBoard. See who I am here. Vote here.
I spent my first winter driving with mostly bald tires on an old Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais. The past few years I've had a Jeep Grand Cherokee with all-seasons, and last year a Mazda CX-7 again with all-seasons.
You might want to have the car inspected by an import specialist. I'm not aware of any in the MSN area, I know a few people that had Audi's that no longer do because of various issues, the cars were about the same age, but with lesser mileage.
You might be able to go lower, a local dealer has an A6 Avant for $12k, it does have less miles though.
I'm running for TalkBoard. See who I am
