On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:59:18 -0800 (PST), info@designsbyskip.com
wrote:

>I'm thinking of getting a 2005 A6 with 37,000 miles, and I ask a
>friend how he likes his A6 … he does, but said it's cost him a lot of
>money to keep it running. Well his is a 1999 so my guess is the is a
>big enough difference that I can't really compare the 2. Would most of
>you agree with that?

I own a 1999 A6 (2.5 Diesel) manual since new. 125.000 miles. In these
almost ten years I had the routine maintenance all done by Audi.

Long Life Service is due every 22.000 miles. No oil changes in between
(Engine's been visually inspected also internally and everything is
fine). No blue smoke, nothing. That's maintenance roughly every 1,5 to
2 years.

Price of that routine maintenance is around $300 excl. oil.

Apart from that routine maintenance, what else happened:

- 2 x front suspension, the suspension arms both sides. That's a
weakness
- A set of front brake pads discs roughly every 25.000 miles. Discs
every 50.000
- Rear brake pads ~every 50.000 miles. Discs I have only replaced once
so far.Brake parts and pads are fairly cheap at second source
suppliers. Not worth visiting Audi for those.
- I'm still on the first clutch by the way (manual).
- Belt once at 75.000 miles. That's around $1000 including waterpump
here. Next belt is due at 150.000
- One Fuel injection main pump. That was the only hefty thing with
around $3000 at Audi. That happened around 100kmiles

Then some things which I did because I felt them to be prudent:

- exchanged the flexible brake lines once (they all get soft and
spongy over time)
- This spring it got a set of new shocks.. new car now *s*

The car's got no rust, looks nice. Superb seats still (cloth, not
leather.. Leather looks bad after 10 years IMO). Good ride. still
quiet.

I thought about buying something new, but really, whatever I buy, the
pure financing cost is more than the maintenance per year. :-)

Long post..Sorry ;-)

Regards

Wolfgang