Audi a4 auto's (B7)
 

Been looking at Audi a4 avant's as a possible replacement for my seat Leon as I'm needing a bigger car for expanding family and dog.
I've never owned an automatic before though have driven them, wondering if anyone has experience of Audi auto box's as long term prospects?

My main concern is reliability are they liable to break? Most of the examples I've seen are autos but should I search for a manual instead?

I'm also still considering the 3 series estate but the same thing applies most of them are autos so any advice on those appreciated too.

Thanks

My experience of the vw tiptronic / semi auto box, which i presume is the same was crap, cost me around £700 to have it fixed and that was just parts excluding vat and labour, never again.

I joined the audi forum which was very helpful, but a bit low on traffic so can take a while to get replies.

I drive alot of manual A4's (diesel variants) and can only imagine that the autos would be obscenely dangerous.

Most boring/sleep inducing cars I've ever driven.

My mother has had a auto diesel for about 6 months now and it has been fine. The Audi drive is a bit soulless but not unpleasant.

I have a manual Avant TDI 170 and had it mapped last week. Made the car equally as quick as my old UK turbo impreza and quite an enjoyable drive.

I've been looking on Audi forums, I know you only hear about ones which go wrong and no one posts saying their car is running fine but it seems when they go wrong they are expensive,

I've been looking at a couple of Mondeo st220's as well, again estate versions. I drove one years ago and loved it so that's a serious consideration, doesn't have the same prestige I guess but I'm not too fussed about that.

I'm not too fussed about fuel economy, I don't do great mileage now and life's too short to worry about it.

bare in mind (june?) 05 onwards ST220 is a high tax bracket - worth baring in mind

If you are not doing a lot of miles/mostly low revs/urban a modern diesel is probably not what you want. They all seem to suffers from problems relating to coking up their emission bits and cost £££££'s to put right.

I was looking a petrol with the Audi and bmw's too. Ive got a diesel currently and I'm sticking with petrol in future.

I think given a choice I would probably go with petrol - its too complicated why I ended up with diesel (I received the car as payment for work) but having had the car mapped it really is a reasonable drive.

It revs so much better than the old 1.9TDI - I won't say its as driveable as a petrol because it isn't and can either feel stupidly fast or completely gutless but when you get it right it isn't a bad place to be and 44MPG is still pretty good for 200+ horses.

I'm really happy with my 170.