Deer Killer Posted March 2, 2005 Share Posted March 2, 2005 I'm not "missing" time. I'm using a period of time that is more corresponding to useful comparisons. If you plan on driving your LGT with 160,000 160,000 is nothing.. my last car was solid at 200,000, the only problem with it was rust from new england winters, I expect it to be much better with this car. I _drove_ that thing on a daily basis too, not just putt-putting around town. I would have had no problems if I lived, for example, in california. Most audi owners are terrified to keep their cars past 50k.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alostsok Posted March 2, 2005 Share Posted March 2, 2005 And Mercedes owners come into our store with 400,000 miles on their cars, so you screwed up! If you would have shelled out a littl ebit more dough back in the day, you could have been running well on your way to a million-miles!!! Sounds like you're the guy that would have had the determinatoin to do it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
03Indigo Posted March 2, 2005 Share Posted March 2, 2005 Either way, the SRT-4 pwnz jooo!!! and the G35 is better because of the centre mounted analog clock that either the S4 nor the LGT has. Hence the G35 is the best car ever. hahaha now we are WAY off topic here, at least the points were made, used S4 versus new LGT....I think that issue is now dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John M Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 John M- How do you know "the goal of the most of us"? Am I cheating my enthusiasm for a car by keeping it 18 months and getting another? Or am I unable to enjoy it during 18 months? The difference is, I drove that car for a year, loved it, and decided to move on. There are a great number of awesome cars out there, LGT included, and having the "I'd like to enojy and own a little longer" mentality would have me sitting with my $800/mo. payment on my S4 when it was new and driving it until all the joy of the car is gone, and I have to deal with all the headaches. I didn't buy this car with the goal of keeping it for a year and a half. I don't buy simple transportation; I buy a vehicle I will enjoy driving and therefore want to own it for many years. I don't ever have to get rid of it. It's obvious that you consider regular maintanance to be "all the headaches." You want to own a car and ditch it and have the next guy pay to keep it on the road another 60k miles. For only 18 months I bet you don't even have to change the oil. If that's what you want, great. Just don't try to convince me it's some genius financial plan. BTW, my car is not an investment. It was an expense just like any other. I could have picked any number of used cars out there -- Viper, NSX, or any luxury brand imaginable. I didn't though; I picked a Subaru. Go figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alostsok Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 You should probably consider the"next guy" down the road" after you're done driving your car for "many years". LEaving maintenance to the next guy only worsens with age and time. I probably take better car of my car in 18 months then you will ever for yours. Just because your mindset is one that lacks respect for a used car, don't project that on me, whether I own a car for 4 years or 4 months. I didn't HAVE to get rid of any car. I wanted to. The point of an expense is to minimize it, not invest into it. I don't tell you how to spend your money, so don't get righteous with how deep your wallets are, and what I can or can not say on a forum board. If you see a hole in my argument great, otherwise don't tell me what I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beanboy Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 Grabbing the popcorn and watching... This is a rare treat at legacygt.com! -B http://www.standardshift.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albeik Posted March 4, 2005 Author Share Posted March 4, 2005 lol! This definitely gone off the topic I started with -- interesting none-the-less. Thanks everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamer Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Since I am looking at the same cars and am both a former Subaru and Audi owner I thought I could be of some guidance. First, Audi's are far more reliable than the guys on this board would have you believe. I have an Audi with over 180k miles on her and other than gaskets at 150k, have never had a major repair. Second, with all high performance cars maintenance is key. If you track the repair records on Consumer reports the germans improve signficantly after Audi and BMW introduced free maintenance programs. However, this is not to say that they are without problems. The S4 turbo problems stem from three issues: (1) a poor oil feed line (which was changed for the 01 models; (2) failure of the throttle body boot (cheap aftermarket fixes readily available); and (3) Bypass valves (cheap (yes, I said cheap - $35) Audi part upgrade remedies). Should you have to do these things? No. But they are cheap insurance and the Audiworld board (of which I am also a member) indicates that no one has had turbo failures after these fixes. Audi has also had some electronic glitches but they do not appear to be common on the S4's. Second, Subaru's are not bulletproof. There are a number of people on the NASIOC board complaining of tranny problems with their WRX's and I have a few friends with a similar problem. Also, there are some signs of turbo failures on those as well. Lastly, durability on all subies is a problem. Plain and simple they use cheaper materials in the structure of their cars which over time begin to weaken making them rattle traps after 80k miles. I know, since I have owned a few myself. (This is not a Subaru-only problem, many japanese and american automakers have the same problem). I would agree that if you are going to get a used Audi make sure you by it under their Certified program. It is a bumper-to-bumper warranty for 6 years or 100,000k miles from new. If you buy a three year old car, you end up getting the same warranty as the subie new. This gives you some insurance in case the previous owner did not care for the car as well. However, Certified cars are the cream of the crop, so you should be safe. Essential difference, a subie is more reliable day-to-day, and Audi is more durable year-to-year. As for the cars themselves, they are both very capable stock. The Audi will handle and brake better and has much better low-end torque because of its twin-small turbo set up vs. the larger single turbo in the Legacy (also because the Audi has higher compression which limits boost levels on the top). The Audi does have a bit more room for performance upgrades due to lower stock boost pressure, twin turbos and larger dispalcement. They seem to take very well to a chip and exhaust upgrade (repeated 12.9 1/4 mile runs on race gas). Upgrade prices seem very close to what I have seen for the Legacy. The Audi also offers the best interior appointments if you are looking for creature comforts. The Legacy offers a cheaper entry and long-term repair cost, but higher depreciation. The Legacy is also slightly larger inside and has a lot of room for upgrades to personalize the car if you like. Not to mention the 200lb weight advantage which is sizeable at the track. I have not made up my mind myself. The Audi is closer to what I want right out of the box and I don't like purchasing new cars, but the Subie is a hell of a deal. Building a car you like might be ultimately more satisfying, but there are a lot of pitfalls and expenses a long the way. This may also explain why a WRX STi really has my attention, if it were only a little less expensive and a little larger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandwood Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 This is a thoughtful and reasonably well informed post. OTOH, however tempting generalizations may be, ones such as: Essential difference, a subie is more reliable day-to-day, and Audi is more durable year-to-year. are not worth much of anything. What bearing does this statement have on comparing a b4s4 to '05 legacy, exactly? You can only extrapolate from recent history of the two makes, and the s4s service history since its inception. Anecdotally, there is just as much evidence that subarus are durable as there is for audis. If you want to make a sweeping statement like this, do us a favor and back it up with some hard evidence! Even if you had convincing evidence to support your statement, I would also be leery of implying that durability trumps reliability if durable means e.g. the 2.7 block is good for 500,000 miles or whatever, but you need to replace two turbos and do other expensive repair/maintenance much more frequently than comparable work on another car. That is only worth something to the owner of the car if they intended to keep the car running for that long. Having said all that, I owned a 99 A4 for about 5 years and loved it. Had very few mechanical problems. And then I was glad to part with it before it got up over 100,000 miles. getting out of the legacy game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parousia Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Since I am looking at the same cars and am both a former Subaru and Audi owner I thought I could be of some guidance. First, Audi's are far more reliable than the guys on this board would have you believe. I have an Audi with over 180k miles on her and other than gaskets at 150k, have never had a major repair. Second, with all high performance cars maintenance is key. If you track the repair records on Consumer reports the germans improve signficantly after Audi and BMW introduced free maintenance programs. However, this is not to say that they are without problems. The S4 turbo problems stem from three issues: (1) a poor oil feed line (which was changed for the 01 models; (2) failure of the throttle body boot (cheap aftermarket fixes readily available); and (3) Bypass valves (cheap (yes, I said cheap - $35) Audi part upgrade remedies). Should you have to do these things? No. But they are cheap insurance and the Audiworld board (of which I am also a member) indicates that no one has had turbo failures after these fixes. Audi has also had some electronic glitches but they do not appear to be common on the S4's. Second, Subaru's are not bulletproof. There are a number of people on the NASIOC board complaining of tranny problems with their WRX's and I have a few friends with a similar problem. Also, there are some signs of turbo failures on those as well. Lastly, durability on all subies is a problem. Plain and simple they use cheaper materials in the structure of their cars which over time begin to weaken making them rattle traps after 80k miles. I know, since I have owned a few myself. (This is not a Subaru-only problem, many japanese and american automakers have the same problem). I would agree that if you are going to get a used Audi make sure you by it under their Certified program. It is a bumper-to-bumper warranty for 6 years or 100,000k miles from new. If you buy a three year old car, you end up getting the same warranty as the subie new. This gives you some insurance in case the previous owner did not care for the car as well. However, Certified cars are the cream of the crop, so you should be safe. Essential difference, a subie is more reliable day-to-day, and Audi is more durable year-to-year. As for the cars themselves, they are both very capable stock. The Audi will handle and brake better and has much better low-end torque because of its twin-small turbo set up vs. the larger single turbo in the Legacy (also because the Audi has higher compression which limits boost levels on the top). The Audi does have a bit more room for performance upgrades due to lower stock boost pressure, twin turbos and larger dispalcement. They seem to take very well to a chip and exhaust upgrade (repeated 12.9 1/4 mile runs on race gas). Upgrade prices seem very close to what I have seen for the Legacy. The Audi also offers the best interior appointments if you are looking for creature comforts. The Legacy offers a cheaper entry and long-term repair cost, but higher depreciation. The Legacy is also slightly larger inside and has a lot of room for upgrades to personalize the car if you like. Not to mention the 200lb weight advantage which is sizeable at the track. I have not made up my mind myself. The Audi is closer to what I want right out of the box and I don't like purchasing new cars, but the Subie is a hell of a deal. Building a car you like might be ultimately more satisfying, but there are a lot of pitfalls and expenses a long the way. This may also explain why a WRX STi really has my attention, if it were only a little less expensive and a little larger. WHY ARGUE ABOUT AUDI RELIABILITY? I mean Consumer Reports states that Audi on average is now less reliable than North American Cars which are now #2 to Subaru. Just because you pay a lot for the Audi does not make it more reliable, and just because you personally did not have serious problems with your Audi does not mean on average that they have few problems. The stats. from Consumer Reports which is the largest and most respected of the car sites rating reliability state that the Audi is -10% for reliability while the Legacy is +30%. Audi even publicly admitted that they are going to improve the Audi line-ups reliability in future models. This argument is not about how much more reliable the Legacy is.. most likely the LGT will take a serious hit in reliability this model year due to the redesign, but that does not make the Audi more reliable...... Period. Parousia OHH and BTW... Consumer Reports recommends that you DO NOT buy a used AUDI where as they Recommend used Subaru's.... So the long term cost issue is in Subaru's Favor not Audi's. QUOTE: Used cars to avoid Here are all the models that showed below-average reliability in our 2004 survey. They are listed alphabetically by make, model, and year. Audi A4 (4-cyl.) ‘98-00, ‘02, A4 (V6) ‘97-00, ‘02-03; A6/Avant ’99, A6 Allroad ’01, ’03; A6 3.0 ’98, ’02; A6 ’00; TT ‘01-02 END QUOTE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamer Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Apparently people are reading INTO my post instead of reading my post. I did not posit that Audi's were MORE reliable than Subies, just that they are not the POS that the posters on this board would have you believe. They certainly have their issues but they are not as common or as problematic as many of the posters here would have you believe. German metal is not a ticking time-bomb, but they tend to be highly dependent upon the degree of maintenance that they see (other than electrical issues). The reason for the post was to allow a un-biased review of the S4 as a potential alternative, rather than being dismissed out of hand. Parousia, I would take a look at the 2005 CR which now recomends A4's stating that recent reliablilty has improved on Audis which are backed up by the charts from 2001-. But I would also agree that they needed improvement. As for my generalization for durability, this is taken from a great deal of personal experience and experience from many people I associate with who have owned German and Japanese metal (I don't know that anyone has quantified in a scientific manner "durability"). My 180k mile Audi was far more solid than any Japanese car I have owned over 80k miles, far fewer suspension, body integrity, tranny issues, etc. Could the japanese car still go down the road, absolutely, however they always felt like something was about to fall off. And don't even get me started on dings. In addition, long-term reliability on japanese makes as a whole drops significantly after 5-years while the Germans improve (relatively speaking), again supporting my after 80k comment. The purpose of my post was to compare positives and negatives of both. The S4 has stock performance and build quality as positives and reliability as a negative. The LGT has bang-for-the-buck and reliability as positives with re-sale value and stock performance as a negative and long-term durability as a question mark. One is not overall 'better' than the other, it is up to the purchaser to decide what he or she values. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parousia Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 QUOTE: As for my generalization for durability, this is taken from a great deal of personal experience and experience from many people I associate with who have owned German and Japanese metal (I don't know that anyone has quantified in a scientific manner "durability"). My 180k mile Audi was far more solid than any Japanese car I have owned over 80k miles, far fewer suspension, body integrity, tranny issues, etc. Could the japanese car still go down the road, absolutely, however they always felt like something was about to fall off. And don't even get me started on dings. In addition, long-term reliability on japanese makes as a whole drops significantly after 5-years while the Germans improve (relatively speaking), again supporting my after 80k comment. END QUOTE Your generalizations are your own, and they are not supported by the facts... This was my reason for posting... Consumer Reports recommends vehicle based on many different considerations, reliability being only one of them. The technologies used in Audi are certainly at the front of the curve, not to mention that the Avant in my opinion is a much better looking car than the LGT, but this is part of the Audi allure and problem. As Consumer Reports continues its advice NOT TO BUY Audi used, and continues to suggest that a used Subaru is a good choice I have to continue to point out that you claims of long term reliability are unfounded generally by the statistics as measured by Consumer Reports. I personally like the look and style of Audi and would buy in a heart beat IF they were more reasonably priced and were on average a better built car. As it stands today, the LGT is a much better buy IMO. Parousia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamer Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Not to be argumentative, but the point of citing to CR for the declining reliability of japanese makes over time is FACT, the same facts and source that you are citing to as your basis for claiming their superiority. So I did back up my generalizations with fact. That being said, the prospect of failing turbos and an unwilling AOA to replace them has me very nervous and is the reason my personal list of autos to look at also includes the LGT and a 2002 330xi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parousia Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Not to be argumentative, but the point of citing to CR for the declining reliability of japanese makes over time is FACT, the same facts and source that you are citing to as your basis for claiming their superiority. So I did back up my generalizations with fact. That being said, the prospect of failing turbos and an unwilling AOA to replace them has me very nervous and is the reason my personal list of autos to look at also includes the LGT and a 2002 330xi. I dont know where you are getting the facts you claim supports your arguments??????? Please reread the CR guidelines if you are still unsure about there view of used car depedability,, Quote: Our survey points up these trends: • In general, three-year-old cars averaged about 51 problems per 100 vehicles. Asian makes had 32 problems per 100; U.S. makes, 55; European makes, 71. • By age five, the average problem rate is 79 per 100. Asian makes have 44 problems per 100; U.S. makes, 88 problems; European makes, 105. But overall averages mask a very wide range. The best five-year-old cars, the 2000 Lexus LS400 and Honda CR-V, have a trouble rate of 18 problems per 100. They hold up about as well as the average 2004 U.S. car. The worst five-year-olds were the VW Golf and Jetta V6, at 158 problems per 100 End Quote As you can see, the European brands are always at the bottom of the heap as the years pass. Pls support your claims with your site references. I am trying to source as accurate information as possible... these are not only my opinions, but also reliability trends as recorded by CR and others. As I said I like the look and design of Audi, but I do not think that they are a reliable purchase... whether today or 5 yrs from today. Parousia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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