Bought me a used euro lemon

[TekHousE]

I have to chime in here..

I have had Audis for years. My current daily driver is the new A5, and my wife has the new Q5.

What I cannot get my head around is how a guy sold you a lemon?? Can you tell me how he 'rigged' the car to be OK when you checked it, but then crap out soon after you purchased it? Considering that the task to do that would mean fooling the onboard computer (I am guessing your crank angle sensor is faulty), that is no easy task.

I just don't see how he could have achieved this easily. And if it WAS broken before you purchased it, how did he hide that fact from the computer? You see where the problem is? a 2003 Audi is way smarter than this guy trying to sell it. ANY 2003 car would be difficult to bypass a major fault around the onboard computer.

I would not be too sure he sold you this knowing it was going to very quickly break down on you. It does sound like the car has had a hard life though, or at least has not had its regular services.

 

[coronet340]

I have to chime in here..

I have had Audis for years. My current daily driver is the new A5, and my wife has the new Q5.

What I cannot get my head around is how a guy sold you a lemon?? Can you tell me how he 'rigged' the car to be OK when you checked it, but then crap out soon after you purchased it? Considering that the task to do that would mean fooling the onboard computer (I am guessing your crank angle sensor is faulty), that is no easy task.

I just don't see how he could have achieved this easily. And if it WAS broken before you purchased it, how did he hide that fact from the computer? You see where the problem is? a 2003 Audi is way smarter than this guy trying to sell it. ANY 2003 car would be difficult to bypass a major fault around the onboard computer.

I would not be too sure he sold you this knowing it was going to very quickly break down on you. It does sound like the car has had a hard life though, or at least has not had its regular services.

I love Audi's too. They are amazing cars, my mistake was buying one that was 11 years old and who know's how it was treated.

To answer your "rigged" question - When my mechanic cleared the codes I was able to drive it a ways before the codes came back on which means he probably did the same thing. He wrote the codes down then cleared them and told me to drive it just to make it wasn't a false code. They came back sooner then later. That was just the tranny and coolant sensor temp. But after pulling the tranny, he discovered a busted motor mount, the wrong A-arms were installed to replace the air bag suspension, and the passenger side CV axle had a busted knuckle. All of which I could not see without a lift when I purchased the car. Also both turbo's were leaking oil but I was unable to see that also because of where they leaked.

And this wasn't like I drove the car for weeks or a bunch of miles. The codes came up between 50 and 100 miles. That's awfully quick for a car the guy swore up and down was an 8.5 of 10 mechanically.

 

[TekHousE]

I love Audi's too. They are amazing cars, my mistake was buying one that was 11 years old and who know's how it was treated.

To answer your "rigged" question - When my mechanic cleared the codes I was able to drive it a ways before the codes came back on which means he probably did the same thing. He wrote the codes down then cleared them and told me to drive it just to make it wasn't a false code. They came back sooner then later. That was just the tranny and coolant sensor temp. But after pulling the tranny, he discovered a busted motor mount, the wrong A-arms were installed to replace the air bag suspension, and the passenger side CV axle had a busted knuckle. All of which I could not see without a lift when I purchased the car. Also both turbo's were leaking oil but I was unable to see that also because of where they leaked.

And this wasn't like I drove the car for weeks or a bunch of miles. The codes came up between 50 and 100 miles. That's awfully quick for a car the guy swore up and down was an 8.5 of 10 mechanically.

I agree, that sounds like the seller did try to put one over on you. The wrong A arms makes me think this car was not serviced by Audi, or at least no reputable service center. That's a pretty big mistake for a dealer service center to make..

 

[Budnicks]

I just read this whole damn thing...

IMHFO you got freaken' lucky, you bought into a bad deal {shady possibly, Buyer Beware}, no doubt because of price, trying to save a bunch on an older model you expect to be like a newer model...

Now don't do something really stupid, put the money in the house fund & leave it there, chalk it up to a hard lesson learned, the "Net" can wait, family/House 1st...

$7 large !!, will go along damn way towards, furnishings, kids stuff, food bills, a house or what ever down-payment & a better life/whatever...

Buy something or a car/brand you actually know something about next time, something that if it goes bad, you can actually fix it with out breaking the bank, with-in your income level, that's if your not in that level of income or upscale cars or having to pay some expert to fix it for you or get someone who does know what they are looking at, to look at it before you buy/spend that kind of $$$ on anything...

Sound like I'm talking to one of my kids...LOL...

Sorry I can hear my Pops in my the back of my mind, as I'm typing this, the old guy comes out in me sometimes too...

 

[coronet340]

I just read this whole damn thing...

IMHFO you got freaken' lucky, you bought into a bad deal {shady possibly, Buyer Beware}, no doubt because of price, trying to save a bunch on an older model you expect to be like a newer model...

Now don't do something really stupid, put the money in the house fund & leave it there, chalk it up to a hard lesson learned, the "Net" can wait, family/House 1st...

$7 large !!, will go along damn way towards, furnishings, kids stuff, food bills, a house or what ever down-payment & a better life/whatever...

Buy something or a car/brand you actually know something about next time, something that if it goes bad, you can actually fix it with out breaking the bank, with-in your income level, that's if your not in that level of income or upscale cars or having to pay some expert to fix it for you or get someone who does know what they are looking at, to look at it before you buy/spend that kind of $$$ on anything...

Sound like I'm talking to one of my kids...LOL...

Sorry I can hear my Pops in my the back of my mind, as I'm typing this, the old guy comes out in me sometimes too...

We bought the car because it was what we could pay cash for, I had no illusions of it running like a 20k car, I expected to have to fix it. But I also expected a 7K car not a run like a 700 dollar car. I was ok with 1500 - 2000 for a tranny. 5-6k for everything was too much.

I did get very lucky, I will not argue that. The way my wife and I look at it, it was just a way for God to get us to start saving for the house. The 'Net is begging for that floor pan though!! haha. Seriously though we were lucky to walk away with few bumps and a nice down payment, plus what we can save.

I actually sold my little Nissan hardbody and picked Mazda3. 31mpg, good reviews and a warranty.