Another reason to avoid the Nissan

The problems with the Audi were mainly caused by the dealerships being so full that you could never get your car in for service. When I had a broken bushing, it took three weeks just to get into service to get it fixed. And forget about the free oil changes. By the time I could get in for an oil change, it was time for the next one.

For some reason, some of the A4s of that era (1997-1999) developed a problem with the valves. Of course, even though Audi knew this was a problem, they only paid for half of the repair. And since the Audi dealerships were so backed up, it took about four months to get the service done... and this particular dealership was staffed by incompetents (it was in OKC. It was the nearest dealership to me at the time). They were nice enough to truck the car back to Amarillo for me (where I was at the time), but instead of dropping it off at my house, they left it in a random parking lot and left it with a dead battery. Oh, and they took the keys back to OKC with them and mailed them back to me about a month later (fortunately, I had an extra set).

And when I got the car back, they hadn't really fixed it that well and within a couple of weeks, the engine seized, and I had to buy a new engine for the thing. And a new turbo.

I used a non-dealer mechanic to do that job since it was going to be at least a two month wait to even get in for service at any Audi dealership.

After it was fixed, I ran over a pothole and broke the A/C hoses. Now, this was totally my fault, and I had no trouble paying to fix it, but Audi did not have the part available. At first, they wouldn't even let me have it serviced at anyone other than an Audi dealership (even though it wasn't under warranty at this point). Calling around, the wait to get in for service was about three weeks on average.

Eventually, after getting the Secretary of State's office involved, they agreed to sell the part to someone locally so I could have it fixed without travelling three hundred or so miles to the nearest dealership.... But that didn't work either because they didn't have the part anywhere in the United States. When I sold the car nine months later, the part had still not come in (I did eventually have the mechanic that put in the new engine fashion me some hoses so the A/C would work pretty well, but we never canceled the order for the Audi hoses).

Now, I will say that other than the broken bushing and not being able to take advantage of the free oil changes/scheduled maintenance, the first 50K miles or so were trouble free. It was only between 50K and 70K that the whole thing fell apart. And that seemed to be a problem, according to my research (done mostly on the A4.org board), that affected on a small portion of the A4s they sold.

Audi has added more dealerships and expanded some of the ones they had, so I assume the wait time for service has gone down considerably. But that would be something I'd check into before buying an Audi just because it was such a pain when I had mine (and I lived in Arlington for the first couple of years I owned it, so there were three local dealerships then).

I wouldn't get another Audi just because of my experience with them. Even if they've changed, I would still be nervous about having a huge expense right after the thing leaves warranty (and I ended up spending about $9K in repairs the last year or so I owned it. Plus several thousand in rental car fees. Since I was out-of-town, there was no loaner car offered. It would've been cheaper for me to just find a used A4 of about the same vintage and mileage and buy it rather than spending all that on repairs and rental cars).