My Audi sucks!!

[Jims5543]

More electric gremlins. This morning the car alarm goes off for no reason while it sits in the garage. My wife grabs the remote and disarms it. Then about 10 second later it locks. One set of keys are sitting in the center console. Sometimes the second set is sitting in a handbag in the trunk. Today the handbag was in the house. Normally my key is in the house but I drove it Sunday and we got back late so I left it in the car.

Potentially the keys could have been locked inside from no doing of our own.

I am counting down the lease on this car I cannot wait to be done with it. My last Audi ever.

[kach22i]

One of the guys living next door to me is buying his first car out of college. He is looking at a used with four year warranty A6 wagon.

I already told him to think twice, sent him this link.

[Dantilla]

Good to know. I briefly considered an A4 convertable for my wife. Glad I decided against it.

[turbo6bar]

I would love to have an Audi, but the horror stories keep me away.

[TerryBPP]

My buddy had the higher end A6 2.7T and it was a crap box too. A/C leaked all over the rear carpets, so the carpet was complete replaced. The the power locks went out and left him stranded at a shady gas station in North Miami. After that it had numerous no start issues and dead batteries.

Now he drives a G35 infin.

[Tim Hancock]

I do not care for the complexity of my recently acquired A6 turbo and I may try to dump it in favor of another 3 series BMW (99 or newer). All wheel drive, tiptronic trans, twin turbos, tightly packed engine compartment, horribly complex electronics etc etc, all lead me to believe that attempting to put 250,000 miles on this car will be much more troublesome than the same mileage I have put on my trusty 2 wh drive, standard trans, NA BMW 325i.

[Tim Hancock]

Just changing the belts requires pulling the whole front of the car off! (bumper cover, radiator, power steering cooler serp, AC condensor etc etc) This is just stupid! The car is nice to drive, but a mother f#@ker to work on!

[legion]

I hear those Audis ruin pictures too!

[Jims5543]

My 1st Audi was a 2001 A-6 2.7T it was instand love. The car drove like a dream and with the sport suspension it handled awesome for a 4000 lb car.

It was plagued with electrical problems as well. Dash went out, windows stuck open sunroof stuck open coolent issues. Every month it was back in the dealership for another fix.

We decided to unload it and lease a brand new one. With 6000 miles on the odo it picked up where the 2001 left off.

Passanger window gets stuck open and the sunroof gets stuck open too. The CD changer died and now we are patiently waiting for the dealership to send us our CD's. I suspenct with their past track record we will not see them again and that pisses me off to no end. Their lack of follow through.

Never again, I am looking to go Acura TL or maybe a Mazdaspeed 6 for our next car.

[slow&rusty]

What is it with many "newer and higher end " European cars today.....

Volvo reliability sucks same with Saab

Audi and VW have electrical gremlins that will make Samson shave off his hair

Mercedes have not made a reliable car since about 1996...

I guess that leaves BMW?

Why don't these companies reduce the amount of electronic gizmos \ crap and put the reliability component back into the equations. There drivetrains are all great but things like flaky alarms and electrical gizmos will make any existing or potential owner run! Can you imagine buying a used BMW and having the i-Drive quit...? Run Forest....RUN!

Yasin

[David]

I just changed another window regulator in our 99 323i, but it sounds like that's a much smaller problem than electrical gremlins. I guess when we replace the car, probably in the next few months, we'll be looking at another BMW. I just can't decide if it's worth spending $40K for a new 3 series or just buy a 1 or 2 year old E46 like we did when we got the 99 model.

[Jims5543]

Yasin I agree 100%. The Audi experiance has been a love hate relationship. I love the ride, I love the handling, I love the sure footed quattro in the rain I love the interior layout and the entire look of the car.

But, its a POS when it comes to just being a problem free ride.

I am going back to Japanese cars I am really leaning towards that Mazdaspeed 6.

[wludavid]

Originally posted by 125shifter
I just changed another window regulator in our 99 323i, but it sounds like that's a much smaller problem than electrical gremlins. I guess when we replace the car, probably in the next few months, we'll be looking at another BMW. I just can't decide if it's worth spending $40K for a new 3 series or just buy a 1 or 2 year old E46 like we did when we got the 99 model.

Yeah, my second rear window regulator went out last week on my e39. Replacing the rear driver's side wasn't too bad, I just don't like ponying up $200 for the part. So I just decided to leave it broken for the time being.

[Tim Hancock]

Never had a window issue with my E36 BMW, but I just had to replace the plastic clips in the frigging Audi's passenger window which requires tearing the whole effing door apart to change the $20.00 worth of parts!

Aluminum control arm replacement is not fun either on an Audi and they all eventually go bad. Thus far I have only replaced one.
The tiny ball type joints on the ends of the arms get loose and sloppy and are not rebuildable.

[StevoRocket]

"One set of keys are sitting in the center console. Sometimes the second set is sitting in a handbag in the trunk."
"Normally my key is in the house but I drove it Sunday and we got back late so I left it in the car."

And this is Audi's fault??

[kaisen]

Jim, Tim (and Len):

You've heard my Audi maladies before. My 01.5 A6 2.7T 6spd had $6000 in warranty work in 7 months before I dumped it. My previous 5 cylinder Audis were all fairly bulletproof (5000CS TQ, 200TQ, 200 20V TQ, ur-S4, ur-S6).

Audi (and to some extent Mercedes and BMW) have gone down hill fast in the last 10 years.

Never again.

E

[LeeH]

The car locking itself if a "feature" not a problem. Anytime you unlock the car with the remote (like disarming the alarm) and then do not open the door the car assumes you really wanted it locked. The only way to prevent this is to open a door after you unlock the car. Then it won't auto-lock.

[charleskieffner]

just be glad you never owned a 100LS!

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by StevoRocket
"One set of keys are sitting in the center console. Sometimes the second set is sitting in a handbag in the trunk."
"Normally my key is in the house but I drove it Sunday and we got back late so I left it in the car."

And this is Audi's fault??

When the car decides to lock itself when no lock command was given, yes.

I have the valet key and spare emergency key inside the house. The other 2 keys I speak of are his and her keys. Both place the seat and mirrors in the position that person likes. When I hit the unlock button with my key everything is where I want it when I get in. I normally leave my key laying on the center console when its in the garage. Sometimes my wife will leave her handbag in the trunk if we get in late and get it the next morning. It usually has her key in it if she did not drive and I did.

I hope this clears everything up.

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by LeeH
The car locking itself if a "feature" not a problem. Anytime you unlock the car with the remote (like disarming the alarm) and then do not open the door the car assumes you really wanted it locked. The only way to prevent this is to open a door after you unlock the car. Then it won't auto-lock.

The car was not locked to begin with it was in the garage with the key in it. The alarm went off for no reason and was never armed to begin with.

Thanks for that info though I will tell my wife. I did not know it would autolock like that. My brothers Toyota does that too so it makes sense.