ltooz_a6_a8_q7

value among European luxury cars, not because of their bad designs, I'm sure.
If we say Audi don't care about consumers when they designed their cars, I think it's false. The marketing people understand that if the resale values are low, people won't buy their cars again and if the cars are not reliable, the resale values will tank... like in the 80's.
- The problems are the vendor components - even with the best quality control, there will still be bad ones slipped through and caused problems.
- Why do they do this, that when the parts failed? Those might be a few bad ones of the batch.
- I'm sure the timing belt, the chains guides had been tested for hours and miles before they released the designs, but again, it's the vendor quality of the belts, guides, tensioners, rollers... etc are the final. I would say for the marketing people and the liability of the company, if the timing belt and its related components life set at 70k miles, I'm sure they tested and consistently lasted for more than 140k miles, it's called safety margin.
- Everyone has his/her own opinions about the cars, the bottom line is, if you decide to buy it, own it, deal with it or go get something else.
- Most of the problems I've seen up here are caused by people who monkeyed with the cars without knowing about them.
- I'm a true believer in Audi Quality and my wife who knows nothing about cars agrees too. Yesterday, while we're driving the Q7, taking the kids to Great America, I looked at our 08 Q7 with 43k miles on the odo. "Wow, 7 years and 43k miles, we haven't spent a dime on this big car...", my wife said "what are you talking about, we just got new tires for it", original brakes and everything in the car, the car drives like new, no noise and extremely stable.
- I just called Kars4kids to donate our 96 Avant since I don't want to fix the transmission solenoids. We bought it in 2003 and now it has 150k miles, original timing belt and everything. We spent $40/year for oil change since then.
- It's not coincidence that all our cars are reliable and others are NOT. It's how you use the cars or how the original owners used the cars. To me Audi cars are just like people, if you're abused when young, you're a walking wounded and will never be the same. We don't abuse our cars, we don't buy abused cars... life with Audis is great.

Cheers,

Louis

Mister Bally

Well ok.

I kinda like that they lose 50% of their value in less than three years. Too bad this doesn't apply to the R8's as of now.

MP4.2+6.0

Not sure here of the source quoted, but my instincts are to be careful on how it really applies.

1. Small Audis have always had better resale than big ones. We own the big ones, not the small ones. That has been true all the way back to the earliest Audis. I bought C1's (100LS's) because they were way cheaper used than the more stripper smaller Foxes (the B1). Same with 4000's vs/ 5000's in 80s. Same with A6, which in many generations turns into a used car yawner. In plain English, the kids and young people fun ride market is a lot more vibrant for small Audis than the luxobarge ones.

2. Audi sales have gone way up on SUV's, particularly the Q5 which I also own. They can hardly make them fast enough. Q5 is now their biggest seller as of a year + ago, bigger than A4. SUV's hold their value better in general, so far anyway, particularly smaller ones. Q5 has also yet to go to a next generation, so while 40% of their current mix is Q5, they don't yet have the stats weighed down by the Q5 going to a prior generation like most other models. Similar for Q7 and R8's until very recently, which are now just transitioning (after some very long in tooth years) to new designs. My rule of thumb from tracking and owning Audis for many years is that on top of annual depreciation, an impending model change costs another/FURTHER approx. 20% one time value hit. You will be watching it on the D4 over the next 15 months. R8 market actually kind of frozen right now it seems to me; lots of owners still holding out and vehicles that seem to sit. See what happens when new ones hit in next 6-9 months. Too many out there, and lots of them more toys and quasi garage queens. Lots of bought-as-new R8 owners bought later ones along the way, so the history of turnover is already there with original owners. The new toy availability will rationalize the prior model market.

3. Frankly, Audi big car sales where the biggest depreciation hits are have not been huge. The Merc S class has hit the A8 pretty hard and the 7 series really hard, plus the Tesla in some markets like ours. CA is (was?) traditionally Audi's second biggest market for A8's/S8's, after...Florida. Thus, the percentage mix is even more shifted toward higher resale smaller and SUV ones, even if not what Audi really wanted since the big ones have the fat margins too.

richard-tx

I am not certain that is true. Most of the strange problems we see here are the exception, not the rule. I agree that some problems are self-inflicted, but for the most part, I believe it is just the luck of the draw.

ArabianKnight

I like how the bigger flagship models depreciate, as it allows me to buy a $116,xxx S8 for $35k

RangeK1D

I agree with you, it really all boils down to who's driven the vehicle. I always hear people complain about German vehicles; our Mercedes GL-450 has roughly 98,000 KM's now, other than a mandatory tranny flush we have spent exactly 0$ on repairs. New set of tires (haha) and oil changes is all we have done. Now only a few houses down lives a "hello, hi" friend who also has the same vehicle, he has spent $3-4000 in repairs just in the last month because he blew a radiator and destroyed the transmission; funny thing is I always see his "young adult" kids driving that Mercedes. 4000$ repairs and young angst filled adults driving seem to go hand in hand from what I have seen.

Mister Bally

Too bad this doesn't apply to the R8