Was replacing a hot water heater for someone the other day and we got talking about a car parked sideways on his driveway. It was an Audi A4 with approximately 81k miles and it is a convertible I know I do remember seeing 3.0 on the back of the car.
He said he bought it three or four years ago with about 40,000 miles on it from the Luxury Auto Mall here in town for about $7500
He said it has an oil leak and through talking with him the best I could understand him because he is a Nepali guy so he had a heavy accent. From what he said was he took it to a body shop and got an estimate and they told him $800 to repair the oil leak.
I don't understand why he took it to a body shop but he did.
He's getting ready to move and he hasn't ran the car in about a year he said he has started it up until about three months ago was the last time so that would have been mid-winter
It has two flat tires so I know there's a slow leak I know in the time he is on the vehicle he put 40,000 miles on it.
I am either considering maybe purchasing it as he offered it for $1,500 which that makes me skeptical but I also know that he wants to move and he doesn't want to have to deal with getting that moved as well because they are taken for vehicles from South Dakota out to Harrisburg Pennsylvania when they move so that you don't want to add a 5th vehicle plus a moving truck as well will also be used.
Let's say I were to purchase this vehicle and it ran and stuff and had an oil leak 12 a front main seal how much of an issue would I have because I mentioned front main seal rear main seal and axle seals and transmission and he seemed to think that front main seal was leaking.
I'm more used to domestic with some foreign being on Toyota Honda along those lines of vehicles oh and some Fords.
How big of a can of worms would I be getting myself into if it was a oil seal leaking of any of those that I mentioned?
With the car be worth $1,500? I did look at the interior which is a light color leather and it does have fair wear on it
The convertible looking at it appears to be in Fairly good shape as I was rather surprised.
My guess is I can probably talk the guy down the closer he gets to moving. I thought about going over and taking a look at it but I don't know what things I need to be looking for? I do have the ability to do relative compression test and other stuff as well I can even pull data and posted up here if necessary and see what you guys seem to think.
I did so my last $1,200 car for $1,500 after 4 years set a tires, the fuel tank, getting the exhaust system welded, one or two oil changes, a rear tail light and a front headlight and it was a good spare vehicle a couple times when I had other vehicles down.
I'm glad I got rid of it just because of the fuel mileage, it sucked
I apologize ahead of time for any spelling errors or words that are out of whack as I have not proof read this as the new Google Voice to text update that came in the last July update for Android seems to be doing pretty good and works just as well as my iPad voice to text works.
Let the comments begin.
I do have multiple scan tools with bidirectional capabilities plus other tools in my arsenal I've been building up. I use the ATS E-Scope Elite 4 with E-Scan Elite and the IEA setup as it was a package deal.
I generally repair wise try to stay away from foreign but I figured what better way to get my feet into the fire.
Let me know what you all think and lay it on me with lists, repair costs vs domestic.
I have wholesale accounts with parts houses, some dealerships and could probably add Audi dealer to the wholesale as well and get parts cheaper if needed.
....
I stay away from those cars, especially if it's something I'm looking to flip.
Too much BS, the whole nose has to come off for anything, special triple square fasteners, limited service info.
Hard pass in my book, but that's just me.
