Hi there,<br>just found this cool website (I don't surf a lot anymore) and decided to post my experiences with my Audi A4 1.8T.<br>I bought the car in Mai 1997 (after my $500 Chevy Celebrity Eurosport had served me well for two years - well, with the exception of breaking down *right* in front of a McD drive through window - boy were these guys *pissed* :)<br>Anyway, I finally got my A4 1.8 Quattro in August and have enjoyed it ever since. When I did some research on what kind of car to buy it quickly came down to 1) an all-wheel drive car and 2) a German or Japanese car. Nothing against US cars but having had *extremely* bad experiences with newer US cars (owned a crappy Ford Taurus piece of junk, needed a new transmission after less than 50K miles, a friends Chevy Cavalier 'fell apart' after less than a year - don't get me wrong, I loved my old Celebrity and I also owned a 79 Chevy Malibu Classic - these cars handled like S*** but were very reliable, I just felt that US cars weren't up to my demanding standards). So it came down to Subaru or Audi and that was an easy choice for me :)<br>So I finally got my A4 in August 97, picked it up from the dealer and within a day the air condition unit was broken - yikes! Ah well, brought it back and they fixed that and the back-covers of the frontseats, which had come loose. Over the next few weeks I enjoyed this great car although it took my dealer 4 (four!!!) more tries to get the seatbacks fixed (they must have been just really clueless) and another try with the air condition. Basically their repair service sucked but after some nasty (honest!) feedback to Audi America during their follow-up phone calls things improved dramatically (why does it have to hurt first?).<br>So now over a year and 23K miles later I can only say: good choice! I love that car! I frequently cross the Cascades (mountains in Washington) and this car rocks! Handling, power, gas mileage and reliability are outstanding and there is nothing like an A4 going up the gravel roads in Cashmere, WA. A buddy of mine owns a mid-level BMW and while it is a nice car it's no match to quattro all-wheel drive. We tried going up some wet mud roads and the A4 is simply the better choice.<br>So, overall I'm very happy but I have a few minor gripes:<br>-there are a few squeaky/rattling plastic parts, like the steering wheel cover, kind of annoying.<br>-the velour cloth is a veritable lint/dust magnet, the cleaning never ends :)<br>-the cool red instruments (at night) are great but wouldn't it be great if *all* switches would be red (incl. the fog light and taillight switches)?<br>-the cup holders suck!!! Ah well, it's a German car :) (no offense - I'm German myself)<br>-the temperature logic is a bit annoying. While the engine warms up and the fans are on manual they sometimes start blowing, I turn 'em down and 5 minutes later they start again. This happens every morning and after turning them down the 2nd time (by that time the engine is warm) they stay down.<br>-the buttons of the temperature control are a bit unresponsive<p>OK, these are all minor things, overall I'm very happy but since the car as a whole is so great it's these little things that stand out :)<p>Anyway, have a nice weekend everybody, cheers,<br>-Hans