All long term Audi owners

Apologies in advance if this thread is a bit long but I need a bit of advice/views.

I purchased my A3 in July this year and even though it was already 2 years old it only had 10K on the clock.
Other than the rear suspension knocking (which was sorted under warranty) so far I have had none of the common problems I read about on this site. The loan I used to get the car will be paid off by Dec 08 so unless anything major changes I will be keeping the car until then, by this time the car will probably be on 35K miles.
At this time my choices will be 1) trade in the car for a another or 2) modify my current car and by modifying I mean VagTechs turbo upgrade with SMIC and the other bits needed to strengthen the engine.
This modification would cost about £10K but does bring the car into RS4 territory with regards to acceleration (claimed 0-60 4.5 secs, 1/4 mile 13 sec).

Now to my questions, is 35,000 miles classed as low mileage in today's Audi's and if so at what mileage do these cars start to spend more time in the garage than on the road ?
Basically if I spend £10K modifying, this would be partly financed with a loan payable over 3 years so I would expect to keep the car a further 3 years by which time the car would have done about 70K.
I know you cannot guarantee that things will not go wrong but the last thing I would want to do is spend this money and then have huge repair bills over the next 3 years
In summary if the car gets to 35K trouble free would it be reasonable to expect to get another 35K out of it with only the usual wear & tear items ?

Cheers

bowfer said:

If you're putting that much more stress on the engine (not just the engine actually),won't the usual 'rules' about longevity/reliability go out the window ?
So the answer really is "god knows" ???

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I know what you mean but I am working on the basis that a 2.0T A3 chipped can run perfectly well with 265-270 BHP, I've seen IHI conversions on various SEAT 1.8T running over 300BHP and I am sure there are a few 1.8T S3's running over 300BHP so if a 1.8L can run 300+BHP I guess a 3.2L can run 400BHP.

Vagtech have done this upgrade on an R32 but so far this car has only done 16K miles but I guess time will tell.

nb said:

i would change the car mate, i presume your factoring in all the costs for upgraded brakes, stiffer springs etc??

I was told by the guy who tuned mine that if you want something that much faster, you are driving the wrong car in the first place.....

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I know what you mean and to an extent I agree.
I guess what I am getting at, is in just over 2 years I will have a car that has done about 35K which in todays cars is not a lot, so for an additional £10K outlay I could have a 400BHP motor or I could trade the car in and spend £10k on a new car.
The question is could I trade in and get a new car for an additional £10K that will achieve the same straight line performance that spending £10K on my current car will.

Then again in 2 years time we will probably all be forced to drive electric cars by the green brigade so its probably immaterial.

I know that spending money on mods does not increase the value come resale although vagtech are selling their 400bhp R32 for £28K which means they are expecting to make some money back on the tuning costs, whether they sell for that price is another matter though.

I would consider the S4 but I would only consider saloons or hatchbacks so the original RS4 is out, I think they are great cars but estates are not my cup of tea.

The point is that short of winning the lottery I cannot see myself ever being in the position to get a sub 4.5 sec 0-60 car but this option offered by vagtech could mean you can get a high performance car without the high price tag.