I'm really happy with my A3 - but it'll be 5 years old this year and I either need to spend a few bob on some routine maintenance (cambelt, quattro oil etc) or change cars.
Looking around, the A3 is still a really convincing "on paper" buy at the moment and a better spec A3 costs less than the equivalent Golf GTi / GTD for example.
The biggest issue for me is that the A3 is getting close to replacement and I guess a factory-order A3 in my spec would also take 3+ months to arrive. However, the next gen A3 probably won't be readily available until mid-2012 and will almost certainly be more expensive. If I keep my current A3, then some of the deposit money for my next car would also be swallowed-up in maintenance costs.
If I went with a new TDi 170 quattro today, then it would cost me about £500 more to run over 2 years - taking into account all costs compared to my current 2.0T quattro. That's very close!
Given that above, what would you do?
Looking around, the A3 is still a really convincing "on paper" buy at the moment and a better spec A3 costs less than the equivalent Golf GTi / GTD for example.
The biggest issue for me is that the A3 is getting close to replacement and I guess a factory-order A3 in my spec would also take 3+ months to arrive. However, the next gen A3 probably won't be readily available until mid-2012 and will almost certainly be more expensive. If I keep my current A3, then some of the deposit money for my next car would also be swallowed-up in maintenance costs.
If I went with a new TDi 170 quattro today, then it would cost me about £500 more to run over 2 years - taking into account all costs compared to my current 2.0T quattro. That's very close!
Given that above, what would you do?