Faults:

Windshield wipers stopped while on the highway in the rain. Brought to dealer who said I needed a whole new wiper motor/mechanism $800. I saw online that others have had the same problem. Doesn't that usually require a recall if so many others have had the problem? It was a very dangerous and scary experience.

Now today I noticed the temperature gauge stayed at Cool even though the car was warmed up. Then the gauge suddenly went to the normal position about 30 minutes into the ride. Have to watch that.

General Comments:

My Audi A4 quattro is great in the snow and that is why I bought it. No major problems till about 50,000 miles.

Faults:

I had the car for 2 months, and the air con pump packed up with a grinding noise. The main dealer wanted £1000 pounds to sort. I took the car to my local garage, who sorted the issue using the same parts for £487.00 in labour and parts.

General Comments:

This car is superb very quick when you use Sport mode, or use the Tiptronic mode; you can then use the 6 gears. I was put off at first, as I have always have manuals, but now I am very happy; it's fantastic in traffic.

Servicing is on a longlife, which means every two years or 20.000 miles, but this all depends on your driving i.e. if you do lots of stop starts, this will have a massive impact on the miles between services, and could reduce the time and mileage in half. I get approx 12,000 miles between services, and the cost ranges from £180 to £330 at the main dealer. My local garage charges £150 to £230, so you know where I go.

The car looks the part. It has a full GMBH Body kit i.e. side skirts/mesh grill/boot spoiler/17 star alloys; it's by far a better looking car than the standard A4. Please note this kit is factory fitted.

The cabin is very nice. Everything is to hand, and the Audi Concert head unit is great, sounds fantastic, lots of bass. I have also connected a Ipod Ice unit; again a great bit of kit; you can flick through you iPod using the head unit, and keep your iPod in the glove box.

Faults:

None.

General Comments:

This car is superb; the look alone makes it stand out. It has the factory GMBH body kit i.e. rear spoiler, side skirts, mesh to front grill, and 17in star alloys.

This has the Multitronic gearbox. I was put off at first I've always driven manual. But what a superb system; keep it in drive or sports mode, or if you want push it to one side and have it in Tip mod, select 6 gears when you want; fab.

The car is very good on fuel (needs to be at £1.32 Per L); over £80 pounds to fill up, and shows 730 miles when full.

Handles very well with the sports suspension. Can be a bit bumpy on rough roads (well that's most of the UK then).

The seats are superb, keeping you place and comfy.

Nice boot space; not too big or small, just right.

Faults:

By 5000 miles the AC evaporator housing made all the HVAC air smell like a dirty athletic supporter. Dealer tried AirScept. Didn't really work. I have to remove the pollen filter and spray Lysol in the intake every few weeks. More often in the summer.

Transmission was replaced at 10k miles due too bad syncronizers. Took over 6 weeks for dealer to fix. New transmission still doesn't shift well, like other similar A4s I have driven.

At 15k miles a coolant flange leaked over 1/2 gallon in less that 1000 miles. Took another 2 weeks to fix.

At 28k miles a front window regulator broke. Dealer fixed in one day, but mis-aligned the door. How?...I don't know! Door doesn't open & close well.

Got fed-up & traded it for a Japanese car last week. You live and learn, then you go back to Honda.

General Comments:

Nice looking, good handling car with adequate power, comprised of poorly assembled from parts of questionable quality.

For a list price of over $30k I was expecting a world-class car with better reliability. Unfortunatly the car ended up being less reliable than my little brother's Hyundai Elantra!

Ingolstadt...you have lost me as a customer.