Metallikahn

Hey all!

I'm currently dealing on a Certified Pre-owned A5 Sportback. For the last 4 months I pretty much had my mind set on a new ecoboost Mustang. I finally got to test drive one a week ago and was really disappointed with it. There was nothing wrong with it, in the sense that it did EXACTLY what it was designed to do, but It didn't take long to realize that it wasn't going to work for me. Tight fit, zero cargo room, and non existent traction control. I'm a decent sized guy that lives in the upper midwest and has a couple of mid sized pups to haul around. I knew the Mustang wasn't big on cabin space, but wow! As a daily drive that wouldn't work at all. The roads weren't even icy and the backend wanted to break loose at 40mph with mild acceleration. I daily drive a Raptor currently and am no stranger to rear wheel drive, but that was ridiculous.

On the off chance that would be the case I had researched some other vehicles as fallbacks (or fall forwards as the case ended up being). I was kind of settling in on the a5 coupe until I stumbled across a shot of the a5 with the cargo bay fully open! That's what I want! After driving the mustang I rolled down to the Audi dealership and test drove a 2018 A5 Premium Plus. That's it! the everything about it fit perfect. nice handling/ride, good amount of power, and tons of room!!! The model I drove (aside from being brand new and having the sticker price to match) was missing a few things I would like and could have gotten on a mustang for a bit less money. Things like adaptive cruise, digital speedo, heated wheel and heated/cooled seats. etc... Looking around I figured it'd be pretty easy to find a Certified Preowned A5 Prestige in the color I want with the options I want for somewhere between the price of a fully loaded Ecoboost and GT mustang.

The local dealer has an Glacier White A5 Prestige with 7k miles, Black interior, Nav, and Cold weather Package listed for $46k. I found a dealer out in Connecticut that has an Ibis White (prefer glacier, but no biggie) A5 Prestige with 4k miles, Brown Nougat interior w/ Walnut inlays (my favorite next to the red interior on the S5), Nav, Driver Assist, and Cold Weather listed at $47,500. The pricing between the two is pretty close given that the only real difference between them is the driver assist,though the second one would also need to be shipped or picked up. I'm waiting on a quote now, but I suspect somewhere around $1k to ship and maybe $7-800 for me to pickup (and of course the extra 1500 miles I'd have to put on the car getting it home). In my looking these seem to be the best 2 deals I can find. My question is, are they? By the time the smoke clears I'm going to be on the high side of my budget. I was looking at getting into the Ecoboost around $40k (loaded out after tax, title, registration, etc...) and already had $4-5K in mods planned out over the next couple years. With the A5 I can only think of a handful of mods (subwoofer, remote start, and maybe a tuner down the road). All things considered, the second A5 (which is my top pick right now and the one I'm currently negotiating on) is going to run me $4k or so over what I had originally planned, which I'm ok with given all the extras I'll be getting, but (if I can talk the local dealership down to >$45k) would I be stupid to pass on that deal just for driver assist, the interior color, and a few extra miles?

Any advice on which route I should more actively pursue?

Thanks!

Metallikahn

Ok so, the local dealer sold their A5 out from under me as I was prepping paperwork and a deposit for them. Knowing I was pretty serious and that I'd rather buy locally with less options than fly literally halfway across the continent for an exact match, that kind of ticked me off.

Oh, well. I checked out a bunch of other dealers looking for a Presitge (with driver assist) for the right price and I ended up going back to the one I found at Hoffman Audi in Hartford, Connecticut. Best deal, all my options (minus ventilated seats, which I'd like, but have read is just a fan on the bottom of the seat as opposed to being connected to the A/C system like in my Raptor, So I can easily live with out) and in all the colors inside and out that I want. I filled out all the pre-buy paperwork, credit application, ect... and put down a deposit on Wednesday. I've also got a flight booked for next week. Starting to get excited!

Still haven't heard back on the Audi credit application. Is it normal for it to take that long? I've been pre-approved by a few other lenders already (for similar rates to Audi), but if Audi declines me for some reason (which I wouldn't be able to fathom why... Excellent credit score, no debt, and plenty of income) I'd still need to go through the whole process with those lenders and I'm starting to run out of days. Hopefully they let me know soon... Took my deposit without any problems. lol

Anyway, 90% of the way there! Hopefully I can get absolutely all the paperwork and payments taken care of ahead of time so I can just show up next Wednesday, give it a thorough look over and test drive, sign on the line, and blast off down the Highway before they can try to sell me on undercoating! lol

Anything else I should be looking out for between now and then?

Metallikahn

Kind of feel like I’m talking to myself here, but oh well!

Landed in Hartford yesterday afternoon and now I am Officially an Audi owner. In the Last 24 hours I’ve driven my new A5 a quarter of the way across the country and IT’S AWESOME!!! The more I learn about it, the better it gets. The driver assist is beyond worth the extra money and works extremely well. Had some jerk try to brake check me today, because he was driving like an idiot and I refused to play along. Saw it coming, but the driver assist braking kicked in a split second before I could and it was a nonissue!

still amazes me how much snap it has when you step on it. Maybe I’m just used to driving a 7000lb truck (though a fairly quick one), but this thing easily blows through 100mph without even thinking about it.

The worst thing so far is I had to stop today and buy a nice pair of sunglasses since my cheap polarized ones where completely worthless with the HUD! Oh well the Ray Bans are probably more appropriate for this car! Lol

Pictures coming once I’m tired enough to park it for a bit and take some! ;-)

AWDPilot

Nice, congrats, have a safe trip back.

patronsaintofpie

congrats on your new car! hope you have a good drive. I am about to do a similar haul for an allroad.