acqui

I was curios from Audi owners in the past 3-5 years, what their experiences have been with the reliability of their cars, especially over previous generations. I remember in 2005, at the Geneva auto show, the head of Audi stating that one of the priorities would be to improve the long term reliability of their cars (post warranty coverage). The reason I ask is because I owned an older generation S4 (based on A6 platform) and also a 2001 A6 and both of those cars were fantastic to drive but both of them were nightmares to maintain once the warranty expired. The 01 caught fire with my father sitting inside while it was idling for about 5 min in a parking lot. It's very odd how the perception of things remain with people because there are many friends I have who will rather drive a car they don't enjoy driving (but more reliable), rather than an Audi because of the perception of its reliability, even though I think they're probably vastly improved from the earlier cars.

A3 dreamer

I picked up my A3 back in 2006 and it has been fine to date. No complains so far and I am loving it!

0cean

2006 with only a broke water hose. No problems really.

meisterkleef

'01 B5 S4 - bad ECU wiring harness - 85k mi
'05 B6 S4 - bad aux rad check valve - 45k mi
'07 B7 S4 - no issues yet - 25k mi

Bezor

Wow. Impressive. Any other model owners wish to ring in?

Deus Ex Machina

just a nasty rattle on the 2001.5 S4 that a specialist with special listening tools was required to locate and fix. My 2005 S4 developed a whine coming from the rear diff that wasn't a problem and I traded the car in before I had a chance to fix it.

Q5Steve

06 A3 2.0T. Loose bolts on A/C compressor worked out into drive belt pulley. Stalled the car on the motorway (sorry, Freeway to "you guys"). Messy. Warranty fix and details sent to Ingolstadt as not seen before (and hopefully never again!) Still the best car I have ever owned!

customfab

and that was me being nit picky, only other thing that keeps breaking are the little posts that the hatch deck strings are attached to

audi_since_90

75k on the '06 A3, 175k on the '00 A4 - no majors (except B5 bearings)

jferry_nc

Well....
Aside from being in the shop for 5 weeks while they tried to figure out a persistant check engine occurring after every 2nd start cyle it's been great at 37K miles.
They determined the valve stem seals were leaking (possible reason for the high oil consumption in general?), and replaced the complete head.
I'm just very glad it was warranty. But it makes me somewhat leary of keeping the car.