2006 B7 Avant - To Replace Or Keep?

[Chris10]

Evening All,

Last year my uncle got a new car, so I was able to acquire his 2006 B7 Avant 2.0 TSFI S-Line for free, it currently has 225k miles on it. It has, however, had quite a few faults. I had a breakdown today caused by the part of the air conditioning system seizing up, this resulting in the serpentine belt overheating and failing. Apparently the air conditioning part is £500-£600 without labour though I haven't had a quote yet.

One of the track-rod ends has apparently seized making it impossible to alter the toe angle of one of the wheels, this hasn't resulted in any cuts to the tyre wall so presumably alright for now.

At the last MOT,the following EML fault codes were cleared: 01089, 08577, 01287, 00010, 01602, 08583, 00135.

I have noticed that when accelerating hard, the tachometer shows a spike in RPM to about 4000 and it holds there, after about five seconds, if the accelerator is fully in, the car ceases to accelerate for about five seconds before any more power can be applied.

The clutch is a bit low as well from what I've been told, from what I can tell it does feel that way too.

Personally, gut instinct is to replace it ASAP, though I do wonder if it's best simply to scrap it or do the bare essentials (air con and serpentine belt) and auction it.

Alternatively, I could try and keep it running since there's no depreciation costs involved.

 

[Charlie Farley]

get it scanned with vcds .
if its a nice car in general and it owes you nothing then maybe worth spending a few pounds to get it running nice.

 

[Ricky Burrows]

Evening All,

Last year my uncle got a new car, so I was able to acquire his 2006 B7 Avant 2.0 TSFI S-Line for free, it currently has 225k miles on it. It has, however, had quite a few faults. I had a breakdown today caused by the part of the air conditioning system seizing up, this resulting in the serpentine belt overheating and failing. Apparently the air conditioning part is £500-£600 without labour though I haven't had a quote yet.

One of the track-rod ends has apparently seized making it impossible to alter the toe angle of one of the wheels, this hasn't resulted in any cuts to the tyre wall so presumably alright for now.

At the last MOT,the following EML fault codes were cleared: 01089, 08577, 01287, 00010, 01602, 08583, 00135.

I have noticed that when accelerating hard, the tachometer shows a spike in RPM to about 4000 and it holds there, after about five seconds, if the accelerator is fully in, the car ceases to accelerate for about five seconds before any more power can be applied.

The clutch is a bit low as well from what I've been told, from what I can tell it does feel that way too.

Personally, gut instinct is to replace it ASAP, though I do wonder if it's best simply to scrap it or do the bare essentials (air con and serpentine belt) and auction it.

Alternatively, I could try and keep it running since there's no depreciation costs involved.

Sell it, scrap it, burn it anything except spend money on it.....your not out of pocket yet so no need to make the car owe you anything when its not worth it.

her time has passed let her go to the car heaven now.

 

[Sygh2k]

If you want to run it without aircon get a shorter serpentine belt, i ran mine 6months whilst i got funds together to get a new aircon pump...ended up from cartech one, genuine pump and good price

 

[AvantMike]

If you scrap it... shotgun on the grill please... (vultures circling)

 

[Ricky Burrows]

If you scrap it... shotgun on the grill please... (vultures circling)

Lol

 

[Chris10]

Thank you for the advice folks. I spoke to the garage and they said that after inspection they wouldn't be able to run a shorter serpentine belt because they couldn't get it to avoid the air con pump but still run the water pump. £500 or so later I have a new serpentine belt, new air con pump and the air con system cleaned evac'd and recharged and the EML faults reset. Apparently no oil was found in the air con system. I've also topped up the oil because it was a bit on the low side (despite the oil warning light not remaining on the dash after ignition).

I've done a test drive down the motorway one junction and back up, the air con works much better (it wasn't working well before - probably should have seen it coming) and the power steering seemed more responsive than before. Still have the problem with the turbo topping out at 4000rpm and then cutting if I try to accelerate in a high gear, haven't a clue what's causing it though it seems ok if accelerating from a start through the gears.

I plan to be test-driving a few vans in the next couple of weeks since that's what I'm tempted to replace it with.

 

[Sidrick]

These cars are being scrapped at an alarming rate, which is what's keeping the value of good ones reasonably steady They're not cheap cars to maintain if they haven't been well maintained throughout their life. Even then, 200k+ miles is pushing even the good bits.

As you say, you can run it without the risk of depreciation, but you'll also get no return on what you spend at this point. I'd run it until the next big bill. Keeping a rough one of these on the road only seems to make sense if you can do the labour yourself.