How reliable are the 2009 A5 3.2 engines? I'm wondering if I should sell now...

[Floptop]

I live in LA. Have about 43,000 miles on it. Reason why it's so low is because I use Metro a lot. Also, I've had really good commute karma over the years.

I've kept up with maintenance. I stopped going to the dealers after Audi Care ran out, but have been going to a very reputable independent garage that specializes in German cars.

Recently, I had brakes replaced, again, and I'm trying to address an oil leak. Basically, I THINK the car is in good shape, but a part of me wants to sell it before this car starts getting "expensive."

How reliable are these engines? Am I being paranoid? I'm just worried about soon having to spend a grand here, 2 grand there, 600 here, etc.

Thoughts? I do realize that since this car is paid off, it's not like I'm saving money by leasing a new, more dependable model with a more comprehensive warranty. I'm kind of rolling the dice. I'm looking to get a PHEV.

[Sinrule]

I live in LA. Have about 43,000 miles on it. Reason why it's so low is because I use Metro a lot. Also, I've had really good commute karma over the years.

I've kept up with maintenance. I stopped going to the dealers after Audi Care ran out, but have been going to a very reputable independent garage that specializes in German cars.

Recently, I had brakes replaced, again, and I'm trying to address an oil leak. Basically, I THINK the car is in good shape, but a part of me wants to sell it before this car starts getting "expensive."

How reliable are these engines? Am I being paranoid? I'm just worried about soon having to spend a grand here, 2 grand there, 600 here, etc.

Thoughts? I do realize that since this car is paid off, it's not like I'm saving money by leasing a new, more dependable model with a more comprehensive warranty. I'm kind of rolling the dice. I'm looking to get a PHEV.

It's extremely reliable in my mind. I have one with 140k miles on the clock and in the past year (I drive 28k miles a year) I've spent about 4.5k in maintenance costs and plan to spend another 2.5k in the next 3 months.

This is purely high-mileage related costs in replacing wear-tear items along with regular maintenance schedule. Everything is accelerated for me because of the mileage I put on the car, but I'd venture a guess that if I drove less than average yearly mileage my maintenance costs would be around 2k to 3k a year (I wish).

I do my own basic maintenance and take it to a shop for more complicated stuff.

At 43k miles I'm guessing you've had to do spark plugs, air filter, front rotors and pads? You shouldn't have any other major maintenance items coming up, the 55k mile maintenance is pretty major, though. I'm surprised to hear about the oil leak, I don't have any leaks in my car at 140k, guess my wallet is just lucky.

In the past 30k miles, my car has been nothing, but a reliable daily driver and a fun one at that. After almost 7k in maintenance costs, the car feels almost new, I'm looking forward to getting the lower control arms, tires, transmission mount, and rear brakes done soon so the car will practically feel new.

Things I've done in the past year:
~7 oil changes
Transmission fluid service
Rear differential service
Valve Cover gasket replacement
Carbon Clean
Spark plugs
Air filter
Pollen filter
Front upper control arms
Front rotors
Front brake pads
Engine mounts (yikes)
Driver's door lock actuator (the only thing that actually failed outside it's cycle)

Things I'm looking out for:
Transmission mount
Lower control arms
Rear rotors/pads
Struts (maybe? Not sure yet)

[aboone]

There’s plenty of folks who are well over 100k on this engine. I’m at 170k heard of others over 200k. Probably the most worry free, solid engine in the lineup but NA engines are a thing of the past. With regular maintenance you shouldn’t have any issues. With only 43k miles on a 2009 you have a diamond in the rough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sazexa]

It's extremely reliable in my mind. I have one with 140k miles on the clock and in the past year (I drive 28k miles a year) I've spent about 4.5k in maintenance costs and plan to spend another 2.5k in the next 3 months.

This is purely high-mileage related costs in replacing wear-tear items along with regular maintenance schedule. Everything is accelerated for me because of the mileage I put on the car, but I'd venture a guess that if I drove less than average yearly mileage my maintenance costs would be around 2k to 3k a year (I wish).

I do my own basic maintenance and take it to a shop for more complicated stuff.

At 43k miles I'm guessing you've had to do spark plugs, air filter, front rotors and pads? You shouldn't have any other major maintenance items coming up, the 55k mile maintenance is pretty major, though. I'm surprised to hear about the oil leak, I don't have any leaks in my car at 140k, guess my wallet is just lucky.

In the past 30k miles, my car has been nothing, but a reliable daily driver and a fun one at that. After almost 7k in maintenance costs, the car feels almost new, I'm looking forward to getting the lower control arms, tires, transmission mount, and rear brakes done soon so the car will practically feel new.

Things I've done in the past year:
~7 oil changes
Transmission fluid service
Rear differential service
Valve Cover gasket replacement
Carbon Clean
Spark plugs
Air filter
Pollen filter
Front upper control arms
Front rotors
Front brake pads
Engine mounts (yikes)
Driver's door lock actuator (the only thing that actually failed outside it's cycle)

Things I'm looking out for:
Transmission mount
Lower control arms
Rear rotors/pads
Struts (maybe? Not sure yet)

On a side note, almost all of these things can be done in a garage with some basic know-how and tools. That maintainence cost could be a lot less if you did it yourself. The only "tricky" bit of all that maintainence is likely the carbon cleaning, and engine mounts. Rear rotors with the electronic parking brake can be a pain and require a VAG-tool sometimes I believe as well.

There’s plenty of folks who are well over 100k on this engine. I’m at 170k heard of others over 200k. Probably the most worry free, solid engine in the lineup but NA engines are a thing of the past. With regular maintenance you shouldn’t have any issues. With only 43k miles on a 2009 you have a diamond in the rough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 3.2L V6, the revised 4.2L V8 (with updated chain guides), and 3.0T engines are all very, very reliable. Even when driven hard often.

[RockJGC]

This video is about a year old already, so I'm sure the mileage is quite a bit higher, but watch this guy's videos on his 200K mile V6 A5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu-7ce62l-Y

[Sazexa]

Also, 43,000 miles is practically just barely broken in for modern cars. As many others have said, 150k+ is not uncommon. I frequent my local Audi dealership often as I worked there for a while, and rarely is there a 3.2L V6 in there. Most of the cars (granted it's also most of what's sold) are 1.8T's, 2.0T's, various TDI's, and then often older ones like the 2.8L or 2.7T.

[AJ Basu]

There’s plenty of folks who are well over 100k on this engine. I’m at 170k heard of others over 200k. Probably the most worry free, solid engine in the lineup but NA engines are a thing of the past. With regular maintenance you shouldn’t have any issues. With only 43k miles on a 2009 you have a diamond in the rough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Agree with the "diamond in the rough" comment. I purchased my 2009 Audi A5 S-Line with 6-spd manual in 2019 with roughly 88K miles on it. I now have 110K miles on her and she's running just fine. The only money I put in was to straighten out a bent rim, a set of new tires, and new rear breaks. the rest is just normal regular maintenance, i.e. oil change ever 10K miles, new filters, etc. I installed a cold air intake, OEM spoiler, Becker cat-back exhaust system, 8000k HID lights for both the headlights and foglamps, and am now contemplating tints. I expect my car to last until 150K AT LEAST. The V6 3.2L engine in this car is a beast!

[shyamvenky]

How's the Becker exhaust - is it way louder than stock? Any drone?
I've heard that the Magnaflow cat-back also has drone. Looks like AWE is the only option without drone - and twice as expensive as the Becker..

BTW, I think folks would recommend you change the oil every 5000 miles than 10k, especially for higher mileage cars..