Newbie here. Well, I used to own an A6 Avant Quattro S-Line back in the day. Anyway, been looking at B8 era A4 Allroads with the 2.0 engine with around 115,000 miles or so. Am I nuts to do so? I have read conflicting reports about the 2.0 reliability compared to Audi 6-cylinder engines. I only drive around 5K-6K miles a year these days.

 

My B8 2.0 has 293k miles on it. So there's that. The two issues of most import are oil consumption and oil pressure. Oil consumption, if it starts, you can try the piston soak, but don't be shocked if it needs new pistons/rings to really solve it. Only preventive measure is doing oil changes at a more reasonable mileage. Which seems will be automatic for your annual mileage. But if it's already doing it, yeah, maybe soak to keep from having to open it up. And then oil pressure, if that develops, it's a random guess at what will fix it. It's a chain engine, so you can read the camshaft adaptation intake bank 1 value when the engine is up to temp and idling to see where you're at somewhat on the chain age. -5° is time to be planning that change. At least it's not an engine out job like the V engines. Anything else is reasonably manageable.

I had my rings/pistons replaced by AoA back at 84k miles. The turbo wastegate went south around 90k, but AoA wouldn't help there (though they had a warranty extension to 70k already on the known flaky thing). Did the chain around 130k; also replaced the intake manifold around then as the early ones often broke. Other than that, injectors and PCV, vacuum pump gasket, timing cover gasket.

If I did swap out my B8.0 avant for something, it would be a B8.5 allroad before anything newer. Maybe a B9.0 allroad. But got no interest in the touchscreen era, and definitely not for the current state of the B10 stuff. No one else touches the B8 era wagons for the size. MB E class and Volvo V90 are larger, BMW 3 wagon and Volvo V60 are a pass compared to the B8 wagon (well, perfect would probably be the V60 interior with the B8 chassis/drivetrain with an aftermarket infotainment system).