Originally Posted by
Josmos
Hello all, I now find myself in the market of purchasing a car. I admire JDMs, but German has always spoken out to me, and Audi out of all. I know I will probably get biased opinions posting on an Audi forum, but I want to hear genuine ownership experiences. No bullshit, because this is a very big decision in my life right now. The Audi I have my eyes on are 2014 S5 coupes, for around 20k. If worst comes to worst, then the A5. But generally speaking, I'd like to put my money into the 5-series coupe.
That being said, I don't necessarily need only S5/A5 owners commenting, just people who has owned Audis in general.
To get to the point, how expensive am I looking at when maintaining Audis? I do not call myself a car person at all, so work needed on the car will probably go to an experienced mechanic. I am planning to daily drive the car. And I am not some stupid red-liner. Many say German is more expensive to maintain than JDM, and I feel like that is obvious, but is that fact alone worth passing on Audi vehicles?
I plan to buy the car to keep it, probably for 3 or more years before I move on. I'm 19 with a solid job with good hours (nothing crazy, slightly above minimum wage in CA), residing with my parents. This Audi (and insurance) will be paid solely by myself. Should I take the plunge or am I setting myself up for a financial pitfall? I really love Audis, but I want to be level-headed and informed here.
I think that you should consider how Audi (at least in the USA) treats owners with respect to what I'll call "longevity". Go find and read the very long thread about ZF transmissions and the MYTH of "lifetime fluid". The TL;DR version is that, despite the actual *manufacturers* quoted recommendation for its own transmissions NOT being anything like "sealed and good forever", Audi refuses to service the transmissions in its vehicles (outside of exceedingly rare circumstances that would only arise due to failures, i.e., not maintenance). You'll find numerous people defending Audi's position on that and TBH it makes total sense if the primary goal is profit. I can't argue with it on that premise. It's insane to believe that a transmission should not have routine maintenance but, when profit of the car manufacturer is the primary goal, it makes perfect sense for their bottom line. One of the best arguments that I've read for that policy is that "Audi expects that Audi owners will be leasing or buying new cars every 3-5 years."
Let's talk about parts. I have a 2015 A4 Allroad. While browsing parts, I see that numerous parts for the vehicle have already been discontinued... after five "entire" years. People say, "eBay is your friend" for any German car owner in the USA as if that is a reasonable substitute for the car manufacturer providing parts. Sure, that is better than having the parts completely vanish as though you're talking about some weird vehicle like an Opel or whatever. Look around any major US city and these cars are pretty darn popular! And that seems to include a VAST market for older than 5 years examples.
But see, the vast market for older than 5 years examples, well that is clearly not in the financial best interest of Audi. You can't blame any corporation for its own profit and existence to be its primary goal. But people just need to come to terms with what that really means -- especially people that want to keep the cars that they love for many years. As long as you are in that sweet spot, buy/lease a new vehicle every 3-5 years... no worries! You're good. Don't even think about it twice... if you can afford that. If not, you really need to consider the additional concerns of long-term ownership. Just my two cents and personal opinion, of course.
Ownership Costs of an Audi?
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