Newbie

welcome mate, as rolty said the engines are very well built, with a remap this by itself will not damage, lessen the life span of the engine, thrashing it at standard is what lessen its life span, but thats why you wont it remapped surely ive heard stories of people having cars remapped at 200k, dunt no why they thought all of sudden to get it remapped after all that time though!

Just be patient and dont jump into anything, it took me a month to find mine, it was from a garage so i got mugged off a bit. i say dont jump in because i was this close to buying a 52 plate a3 quattro for 7500 :O, then waited a week found one 2 miles away for 6k, still dear though, if you are not being colour specific you shouldnt find it hard to find one, what are you after the quattro or 2wd version?