Is this suspicious?

[Sukhy]

Hi all, first post and I'm already asking a question (Sorry!). I've been looking around for an A3 black edition and have came across one at what seems to be a fair price and decent spec. It's a 5-door 2.0 TDI Black Edition with 73,000 miles on the clock and with an offering price of £7700. I've received some photos of the car earlier and the "one lady owner" tells me that her ex-husband caused some damage to the steering wheel and she's willing to fix it before selling but I'm finding it a bit suspicious. I'm not great with these sort of things but doesn't this look like the airbag has been deployed and then the steering wheel horn cover has been stitched back up again? I haven't spent any money on a background check just yet as I'm still having a look around. I just don't want to end up with a damaged vehicle all for the matter of a few hundred quid.

 

[leshkin]

I've learned a long time ago - if you have doubts about a car just walk away, there will be another one along

 

[LEE69]

Looks cracked to me, it's a hard plastic, maybe hit the horn to hard?

 

[Dubjam]

Pay for an RAC check. Simple.

 

[desertstorm]

I would say somebody was very enthusiatic hitting the horn and has damaged the cover on the airbag.
You can buy just the covers if you look around. A complete airbag new would be pretty expensive.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audi-RS6-...458?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c974c1f92

If you look at the pictures in the add you can see from the reverse picture the lines where the cover is designed to break when the airbag goes off.
These tally with where the cover is broken on that car. When the airbag goes off the cover rips along these lines and it's not repairable.

http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/threads/2007-a4-airbag-in-2010-a3.180778/

 

[sliced]

Price seems very low for a black edition

 

[pluves1]

For the airbag to deploy the 'rip' would be a lot greater. My view is that as the airbag cover is a simple fix, anyone trying to 'hide' anything would probably have just changed the cover before putting it up for sale.

It could be a genuine seller looking for a quick sale. Questions I'd be asking

Has the car been involved in any accident no matter how minor?
Does the car have full audi service history?
Is the mileage genuine and can it be verified from old MOT's?
Is it a genuine black edtion? Get the codes from the front of the service manual which indicate what extras and standard equipment was on a car when it was built.

You don't say what year the car is but, it does look a little cheap. One explanation is that the lady owner doesn't realise the potential uplift in value the black edition has over a standard edition. There are cars out there for this money but the mileage is usually a lot higher.

If you have any suspicions then as other have said you should walk away.

 

[Forbzeeee]

Enquire further but be prepared to walk if you sense that something is not right.

 

[Dave-S3]

£11-13k would be about the going rate for a BE sportback with 70k on the clock from years 09-11 id say! So its too cheap id say!

 

[voorhees]

Walk

 

[PaulC1988]

Keep looking

 

[Brennan]

Certainly wouldn't buy that, walk

 

[Goner]

All these saying walk walk.. Don't walk, you can go and look at it for the cost of the fuel.. If it's genuine then you've got a cheap car..

 

[enc]

looks like sukhy was a 1 post wonder

 

[DomH]

Or he bought it, then crashed and the airbag didn't go off

 

[Sukhy]

My sincere apologies to everyone who tried to help me with this topic, I had completely forgotten about this thread until I returned to the forum recently to see if there was anything that had creeped up for sale in the classifieds! Anyway, the car was in London and I'm in Glasgow so it was all a bit too much to be risking for a couple of hundred so I decided to 'walk' and keep looking. Still nothing has came up as of yet, just having a look at a 1.9 TDI Sport 58 plate or a 1.4 TFSI S Line 09 plate. Thank you to everyone above once again!