pgreen822

For anybody looking to buy in the next 3-4 months, has anyone purchased or is considering a CPO S5 Sportback? Used inventory is starting to slowly increase since the car just came out, but I am interested in your thoughts on savings, pros/cons, etc.

ArvX147

CPO is always a good deal if you can live with a used car. On cars that are very slightly used you need to realize you are paying a significant premium versus non CPO for that warranty. But if you look at it against a new purchase you save a lot.

Chiefan11

I have always bought CPO cars in the past. My wife drives a 2014 Q5 TDI I purchased online from a dealer in Austin with 7K miles on it when it was about 5 months old. Considering the savings and the TDI settlement afterward it ended up being a great deal. I purchased a new S5 due to lack of CPO inventory. The Audi USA website changes has made it more difficult to locate CPO cars and I only found one S5 CPO in a few months of searching and it was not in a color or had the features I wanted and it was located in Atlanta.

I heard the dealers pushed back on Audi to make it harder to search for CPO cars. At one time the Audi website was like BMW's where you can search the entire country for CPO inventory in a few clicks. When I told my local dealer I was considering a CPO S5 I believe it influenced them to make me a deal on a new in stock model I couldn't pass up.

pgreen822

That's a great call. Where I struggle is that the S5 Sportback I want has a MSRP of about $62K. Most of the CPOs I have seen would have had MSRPs of around $68-$69K, reflecting options I don't really need. Considering the CPO price is about $60K (a $9K savings), I'm not sure if that is the right way to go since I would lose new car incentives and would have a higher loan rate since it's a used car. It's a tough call...

caranddriver

So I was able to negotiate $41,532 (before sales tax and registration fees) for a MSRP $53,750 2018 Audi CPO A5 Premium Plus Quattro DSG coupe. This worked out to a 22.7% reduction from MSRP. The A5 had 7840 miles and 10 months warranty gone on it when I purchased. The A5 options are Florett Silver paint, technology package, S-Line package, 19" wheels, B&O stereo, and ventilated seats. The salesperson threw in a lower end 3M tint job in as well. While I like the medium tint, the installer was not perfect so I may replace at some point. Even though the car was in excellent condition overall, there was a light touched-up scratches on the aluminum on the passenger door and a couple small scratches in the right fender bumper. And of course there are the tiny spots where road debris has already hit the front of the car. I could live with those small things for the discount, but some people must have brand new cars.

I had been tracking 2017/2018 Audi A4 sedans and A5 coupes and sportbacks since November 2017 so I became a pretty good expert on market trends, demand, and inventory nationwide. I think a large majority of the cars at this point are service loaners including mine so at least they are getting taken care of by a dealer, but they are getting lots of different drivers. In regards to the CPO warranty, one dealer showed me his cost for certification of an 2017 A4 Prem Plus Quattro. For the two-year CPO warranty w/ $85 deductible it cost them about $1650 and then they add on the cost of certification inspection and detailing which seemed to add about $650 for a total of $2300. From my researching on here, you could never get that quality of extended warranty for that cheap. My guess is that for an $85 deductible extended warranty you are looking at spending ~2X the dealer cost.

I didn't even bother using the Audi CPO search. Set yourself up with Autotrader.com and Cars.com accounts. Save searches for what you are looking for and then favorite the cars you want to keep track of. Both websites give you options for emailing you when new cars show up that meet parameters and when price drops occur. Tracking the market over time gives you a good feeling of demand and the price point at which cars sell (the listing shows up deleted) so you can determine what is a good price point.

I ended up buying and driving back to the SF Bay Area due to the minimum options I wanted at the price I wanted to pay. Feel free to ask me any questions - happy to PM if you want.

pgreen822

caranddriver

Welcome. A friend of mine will be in the market for an A5 Sportback at the same time from a 2014 428i Gran Coupe. I came from a 2014 428i M-Sport coupe which met an untimely demise. I also bought that under 10k miles too.