one321

I have a '91 Acura Legend with 245K miles on it. I'm looking to become a part of the Audi family. The car I have my sights on is a 2002 Audi A6 3.0 Quattro 5-speed automatic with 77K miles. From the outside, it looks like it's in great shape. I will be test driving it this weekend. You can consider me a car newbie. Do you have any suggestions for me first about even buying the car and then about what I should look out for and ask about when I am at the dealership? Thank you!

daboyzz

But I can tell you that I recently purchased an 02 A6 2.7T with the 5-speed auto and it had 70k miles on it. I wanted to see all the service records and specifically whether the timing belt change had been done (and this directly influenced the price I was willing to pay). After that, I took the car to an independent mechanic who checked for things that might be likely to have gone bad on a car of that vintage. CV Boots, etc. The mechanic also did a full inspection and checked for any fault codes from the car's computer.

That stuff (which, frankly, I can only listen to the shop on b/c I am not a DIYer and do not have a thorough knowledge of auto mechanics) aside, it was important to me to try to get a sense of the driver and how that person likely treated the car. While the condition of the interior/exterior of the car aren't necessarily telling of how the engine was treated, I definitely think where a visual inspection tells you the car was not treated well, the maintenance was probably equally questionable.

And don't hesitate to ask - while some people might lie, I think many are proud. I asked a lot of questions about how fast the car is and how it stacked up against other cars in highway racing, etc. If somebody tells you they crush everyone, etc., this may be an indication that the car was driven harder than you would prefer. The guy I bought the car from hesitated in selling it to me because he took that to mean I was going to mistreat it. I thought that was a good sign.

Remember - you're buying a car with 77k miles. If those were easy miles, and the car was well maintained, that is not really high mileage. If they were hard miles and the maintenance wasn't kept up with, you're looking at a good possibility of dealing with some hefty bills in the short term.

That's my two cents.<ul><li><a href="http://search.audiworld.com/search.html">Forum Search</a></li></ul>

Raoul

I'd shoot for lower miles. Theres a ton of 3.0 cars out there to choose from.

one321

I'm in South Dakota. I've done quite a bit of searching, and I come up with either an older car with more miles or newer car that is out of my price range. Would you say that a 77,000 mile 2002 was driven too much? It is about 10,000 over KBB's average...

galkokolaf

you are more than welcome to use the subject line

one321

This is the one I was initially looking at because of the price. I haven't specifically defined my budget, but I'm hoping to keep it at &lt;$15K.

http://www.billionauto.com/show.aspx?vid=887680

These are two other more expensive options. I'm not totally against spending more if it's going to mean spending less on the car in the near future. I guess that why I'm posting here to get an idea of what would be my best bet.

http://www.billionauto.com/show.aspx?vid=879253

http://www.billionauto.com/show.aspx?vid=904662

I will definitely test drive everything I can find and ask as many questions as I can think of to get a better feel for all of these beyond just mileage and year.

ado_dado83

make sure the carfax is clean.

Anything over $16k with that milage is overpriced.

All Wheel Driver

is not too bad, a little more mileage per year, but that's not really high miles.

If it has a maintenece history and you get an good aftermarket warrany, than you should be in good shape.
The maintenence history is crucial. You're approaching timing belt replacement mileage so that will have to be done around 80-85k miles.
That's pretty good expense.
Also have it checked by a mechanic so you really know what you're buying.

iProDrive

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one321

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