USED Audi A4 Saloon (05 - 09)

My car

My new car is very good looking and good to drive. However, I am concerned about the quality. I've now had the car for around five weeks and it has spent two full days back at the garage. This week, it is to have an injector fitted. The driver's door also needed (and still needs) adjustment. I expected a higher build quality than this for my first Audi.

My car

Modest improvement over the previous A4 which I owned and was excellent. Superb refined engine and excellent build quality as I have come to expect from Audi. I feel some of the Optional extras should be standard when you are paying this sort of money. Overall a superb and very refined vehicle.

My car

Perhaps I have been unlucky in buying the proverbial Friday afternoon car but sadly I have come to regret my choice. I have had a number of problems, some of which the dealer has corrected, the others I have just been told that's the way it is. The car has a published mpg of arround 48, despite mostly motorway driving I can only achieve 40-41mpg. The dealer tells me it will take 10-15k miles to run the car in, and even then the published figures are unattainable. A more concerning problem is the engine tremor when idling. It shakes the whole car - even a four-day-old loan car did it and the dealer says they can do nothing until Audi writes software to correct the engine management. I have had to have the front suspension changed to correct a noise when turning at slow speeds, the key needs constantly recoding as mobile phones wipes its memory. My next car will be a BMW or a Merc.

My car

Having purchased two new A4s privately (a saloon and Avant, both diesels) over the last two years, I have a good few miles under my belt.

The Audi dealership cannot be faulted and have been very quick to rectify any problems with no complaint. However, with all reviews on Audi cars without exception I have read that the build quality is excellent, almost without comparison etc.

I sadly cannot agree. Problems have been with the seat fabric wearing quickly, the trim coming loose and on both models water gathering in the door sills.

I found the driving experience, particularly with my first car, which was manual, quite disappointing. Jerk-free gearchanging was difficult and was one of the main reasons why I chose a six-speed auto 'box for my second car.

Residuals on both cars were very good but the driving and owning experience was not as enjoyable as I had hoped. So this old petrol head has reverted to a smooth V6 BMW 5 Series, which I am happy to say is proving to be most agreeable.