Rodney,

The general consensus seems to be that if you ' chip ' the A4 1.8T (ie: engine tune), then you will see a decrease in engine life expectancy. (Of course, no-one can quantify it.)

But, if the TT (180HP) and the A4 (150HP) have the same basic motor/engine (1.8T) and turbo (kkk-ko3?), and the only significant difference is in the ' tuning ' , then one could conclude that the TT engine life will be less than that of the A4. What gives?

Any time more power is produced, longevity will be reduced. The big question is by how much. As far as I know the only change for the 1.8T in the 180hp TT is lightening the flywheel. Also, many people, myself included, believe that one of the principal reasons that the 180hp version of the A4 1.8T isn't offered here is that Audi doesn't want to canibalize sales of the more profitable 2.8.

So what does all this mean? Well, first off this is speculation, but I believe that it means the 180hp 1.8T engine will still have good long term reliability. I also believe that a properly tuned stage 1 chip will maintain good longevity as well. I'm not saying that any of these variations will last as long as the 150hp version, just that I don't think the impact will be that large, I certainly hope not since I plan on keeping my car for a long time and plan on chipping it...only time will tell.

Regards,
Rodney

'99 A4 1.8tqms

PS Sorry if the response wasn't very clear cut, but that's only because there won't be any hard data to base longevity on until a whole bunch of these cars (chipped, unchipped, and TT) start getting up in the 150,000-200,000 mile range.

This 1.8T engine will OUTLAST YOUR DESIRE TO KEEP YOUR CAR. Barring excessive mods (200+++ hp) and abuse. This is a non issue.

I beleive that the UK 1.8Ts have 180hp to start with. They just strangle the US ones to keep them from outselling the V6 cars. If the stock euro cars have 180hp, I don't see how we'd be overstressing our US-spec engines.

of us Americans abilities to maintain our cars also. I know of one fellow who hadn't put oil in or had it changed in 80K miles, and wondered why the engine broke (this was a Nova). I like to think that someone who would be interested in an Audi would do better than that, but with those record sales numbers one has to believe that we are now pulling beyond the ranks of the faithful.