Digressing from restaurants, my 2002 Audi A4 Avant (wagon) just went over 100,000 miles a couple days ago. Fitting that it was during a drive to a traffic court, since that's where a lot of its miles have come from in the last 4 1/2 years.
Overall I've been pretty happy with my Audi. First and foremost, it drives very nice. I remember shopping for cars. Drove my '96 Cavalier with 135K miles to the Subaru dealership and then to the Audi dealership. I got back in my Cavalier after the Subaru and felt like my Cavalier drove better. Then I got to the Audi dealer and drove the A4. It wasn't even close. The shifter (it's manual 5-speed) was ultra-smooth and still is after 100K.
Another nice feature, and a reason I like wagons, is that it holds a lot of stuff. Once I had bought a snowblower that I had to return. We were able to fit it in the back of my car, both ways. On the return trip it took up more space because I had partially assembled it. Our family has grown now, and the car is getting small in terms of passenger space. It fits the four of us and all our stuff for trips, but we have no room for a fifth person because the child seats take up a lot of space. So my wife will be getting a larger vehicle soon, and I probably will as well in a couple years.
While I have been fortunate not to experience this, the car is supposedly very safe. It keeps getting great ratings on crash safety from the government and the IIHS. I have experienced the winter handling and it is really outstanding. I've been driving in snow for about 25 years now (41-16=25) and it handles ice and snow better than anything else I've ever driven. Part of that is the winter tires but even before I added those it was still good in the slippery stuff.
Having a 4 cylinder (turbo) and a manual transmission has meant good gas mileage. Somewhere between 25 and 26 mpg over the life of the car.
Reliability hasn't been great, but pretty good I guess. Through 100K, I've had to spend some money on mostly minor things. It's more the hassle of having to get things fixed than the cost, but on the whole not too bad.
Looking at a new car for myself in a couple years, and Audi is definitely on the shopping list.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment