Decisions.... need buying advice

[Jason-Con]

Hi all, you may of seen my previous post regarding becoming an audi owner for the first time and now im a bit stuck. Ill give you a little info on my situation. I drive 50 miles a day to work and back and have been doing this for the past year in my 318i e36 auto touring, Dont get me wrong the car is amazing but im doing a tank of fuel a week...not good! Its now got to the stage that i thought i need to do something and decided on the 1.9 tdi 130 route. Now.... I have seen:

• A car local to me which is a 2002 saloon in grey up for 5250 with 81 on the clock . Im happy with the condition as the car is mint.

• There is a dealer near me selling a 2002 black saloon with 100k for £4k, i have not seen the car but its black(which was my first choice of colour) Granted it has 100 on the clock but i do think £4k is a good price, and being a dealer i can maybe bump him to 3750 cash

That not it all......

• A private seller is selling a blue avant with 87k and it has sports seats, this is up for £4150, again i recon £3800 cash should do the job.

So im kind of torn between paying top wack for a minter or paying alot less for a higher mileage car or paying a lot less for a similar condition car.

Just wanted to know what you guys think.

 

[quattrojames]

It all depends on how comfortable you are financially paying 'top whack'..... and do you want a Saloon or Avant?

If it was me i would probably go with the Avant which will give you over a grand to play with

But thats just me and I prefer Avants.

 

[markyzs180]

Yep, I'm with James, you've got a tourer now and trust me, you'll miss it if you go to a saloon, and again trust me you don't want a black car in this weather

 

[J7USS]

I never used to like avants but they suddenly started to grow on me, guess I didnt really pay attention to any until BUB pasted his on the net....then you have Qjames, Nutkins etc and avants seems to be coming more popular. Id have one (hopefully soon when the snow finally clears from Yorkshire) and if you are used to tourings then go for the avant defo.SOunds like a cheap motor for what you getting. Just give it a good check over and if you do have it then treat it to a service of your own!!

 

[BahnStormer77]

Go with the last one: sports seats and an Avant... it's only thing I really wish I'd done with mine (I went Saloon rather than Avant).

 

[Jason-Con]

For aprox 90k on the clock are there any major issues that can happen, ie gearbox or turbo.

 

[BahnStormer77]

provided it's been looked after (regular oil change, cambelt around 80k), the next thing to go is the turbo's around 150k (apparently).... but if you've saved yourself £1k, you've got a while before that's an issue...

The base engine block (i.e. the SDI) will apparently do 250k with nothing more than regular oil changes....