(potential) New A4 owner....some advice please

[Willie Hecke]

Hi everyone, I found this forum while Googling for reviews etc on the A4....hopefully, I shall soon become a regular visitor here

I'm moving 'upmarket'...from my usual ford/vauxhall drives of the past, now that the 'kids' are becoming more self-sufficient and aren't bleeding us dry of all our funds

We've been to look at two A4 S Line Avants.....one is a Sept '09 2.0T FSI with appx 35k miles and the other a Mar '10 2.0 TDI 170 with appx 46k miles, the petrol version being just over £2k less than the diesel.

I'm undecided as to which one to go for....I only cover about 8k a year on my 12 mile each-way commute, plus the odd trip here and there up the coast, so the better mpg of the diesel isn't really that much of an issue I don't think. I see the official figures on the petrol being about 31/41 & 52mpg, but we all know they can be wildly inaccurate in the real world.

I was wondering/hoping if anyone has either of the two models, that they can give me some realistic 'actual' returns on mainly A road and dual carriageway/motorway type driving. The FSI is 210bhp so I'm a bit wary of buying it, and finding myself getting 20-odd mpg or something (which would be a bit of a shock to the system after many years of diesel ownership!)

Many thanks if you could offer me some advice...

(P.S - just LOL'd at my forum standing of a 'one post wonder'....things will improve - I promise )

[Longdog]

I'm sure owners of both flavours will be along to give you a better idea of mpgs but as you only do 8000 miles a year I'd definitely go for the petrol, it's a great engine and suits the car.

[c.grex]

Its more about what type of driving you do when you do your 8000 miles!

I have the 143 TDI. I will do 1-2 school runs a week, 6 miles round trip at 25 mph average. Then the rest are 20-30 mile shopping trips and then the odd day out with over 100 miles.

Worst I have got is less than 30mpg on a tank, but it usually is somewhere around the late 30's nearly 40. If I try on a 100 mile trip, I can just get over 50. The Diesel engine does not like cold weather, and takes ages to warm up. My short runs kill the mpg's.

next time round I'll be swapping to petrol, a S3 or S4. If I get somewhere in the 20's I'll be happy as its only really 10 less than I get now. Overall for the mileage I do although 25mpg seems bad the actual cost will only work out a few hundred over the life of the car.

[Willie Hecke]

Thanks for quick replies both...

I'm in a 55 reg Mondeo and it's giving me an average of around 42mpg with my profile of driving; my 12 mile work commute (4 days) is about 9-10miles of dual cariageway with the rest averaging 25-35mph. The next 4 days I will be off work and so will be mainly on short 5-10mile hops into town etc...this is mainly how it goes for me, apart from the odd longer family outing every so often!

[c.grex]

I wouldn't expect much difference to what you are getting now.

I see post like this on here any other forums all the time, but one thing most people forget about is 'how they drive' I have had diesels for the last 12 years and like the low down gearing and the way they drive. But I haven't driven anything better than a 1.2 Ford Ka in petrol for a long time! So I would always recommend a good drive in both before making any choices (You may not be thinking of buying from a main dealer, but they will always be able to offer a test drive in both cars, and don't feel too cheeky asking for a few hours of a test drive, I always do as you can't ell much from a 10 mile route that the dealer plans!)

[miatang]

Welcome to the forum.

This might help

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/petr...culator/248139

I had a similar decision and decided to go for the petrol.

[Longdog]

I wouldn't expect much difference to what you are getting now.

I see post like this on here any other forums all the time, but one thing most people forget about is 'how they drive' I have had diesels for the last 12 years and like the low down gearing and the way they drive. But I haven't driven anything better than a 1.2 Ford Ka in petrol for a long time! So I would always recommend a good drive in both before making any choices (You may not be thinking of buying from a main dealer, but they will always be able to offer a test drive in both cars, and don't feel too cheeky asking for a few hours of a test drive, I always do as you can't ell much from a 10 mile route that the dealer plans!)

Good advice, must admit to being a diesel hater even though I've only owned one in over 20 years of driving!

[Willie Hecke]

Welcome to the forum.

This might help

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/petr...culator/248139

I had a similar decision and decided to go for the petrol.

Thanks for the pointer miatang (though tbh, I couldn't make head nor tail of the spreadsheet requirements I needed to input...I'm buying used rather than new, don't know how much either will be worth in 3yrs and the WC site didn't have the exact versions of car I'm buying!)

Did you regret your decision in buying the petrol in the end?

[Willie Hecke]

One other thing please...

Out of the two possibles, the tfsi doesn't have parking sensors or SatNav. The parking sensors can be added-on later fairly cheaply, and I was also going to use a Brodit phone holder and my Galaxy S3 for my SatNav - I think Google Maps Navigation is brilliant and more importantly, bang up to date! The downside is having to have a 12volt supply to the phone....it can get to look messy if the 12 volt supply is too far away from the holder, with cables stretching to reach the phone, and getting in the way. Can someone tell me where 12v supply is in relation to the centre air vents, where I would have it situated?

Thx again....

[The Polisher]

Just a thought, with so few miles... the diesel won't get hot enough for the DPF to regenerate properly...... big bills if that goes!!

I'd go with petrol on that mileage!