I'm big on the Audi's - two so far with no or minor problems. Best so far was the '01 Allroad, but the family got to big for it. So I got the Mini and the wife got something else. Anyways I'm waiting for the new Q7 and back to Audi again. I drove the A8L W12 and fell in love with the motor and style. I like the front end on the new style, but as my friend says "a seat for every *** and an *** for every seat". Buy what makes you happy, we are all biased towards something or multiple things.

 

I had two TT's, a 2000 180FWD, and a 2001 225Q. Each had around 50K trouble free miles when I sold them, I wouldn't have a problem at all recommending the A3. I have a MCS on order because I am an auto enthusiast and like to try new things, sounds like maybe it's your turn to try something new too.

 

My aunt and uncle have been long term Audi fans and I seem to recall way back when that my father had an Audi Fox for a few months and gave it to my sister in law who drove it for many years. I drove it once and remembered it was nifty relative to other cars of that era--it was so long ago I can't even remember which era it was.

My uncle gave my cousin his old Audi 5000 and it lasted over 200,000 miles. I don't even know what the new models are called now, but my aunt's is a 2005 wagon and the interior is magnificent. Unfortunately affluence has set in so that family's cars seldom log many miles before getting replaced.

My mechanic warned me against buying a MINI, but he is against German cars anyway (he fixes BMWs, Audis and Benz--as well as Citroen, Renault, Peugeot and Dyna Panhard). He made a semi-exception with the MINI because he said it's not really German, more Brazilian-German. My mechanic would probably rate MINI and Audi as equal in terms of reliability and expense. Way below the Japanese brands.

Buying a new model to be the first in your neighborhood may be comparable to signing up to test the car for the manufacturer. For this reason the new A3 might disappoint as you log on the miles. MINI seems to have improved the car for 2005. It might take Audi a couple of years to fine tune the A3 as well. But compared to the clunkers I have driven both makes are paradigms.

 

cut the whining about owning a first year production car....like anything else it was to be expected......our 02 pulled to the left and we were the first ot receive the fix for it.

 

Carroll - you sound as if you've already made up your mind to jump ship to Audi (), but I hope you'll reconsider sticking with MINI and getting past your thinking of smaller wheels as "wimpy." Many, many people here have dumped the unforgiving runflats and boat anchor S-Lites and never looked back. Maybe try reading around a bit (or posting) in the tire/wheel forum, checking out Tirerack.com, and see what the other options are before you switch cars over such an easily addressed issue. I've driven the A3 and it is a sweet car, but it just doesn't have the soul and spirit and history of the MINI!

 

Moving from MINI Talk to Off Topic - Autos.

 

My two 99.5 A4s were modified to over *TWICE* their original horsepower and spent their entire life being relentlessly flogged at the track or driven in the ugly war-zone environment that is downtown Chicago.

They've both been exceptionally reliable.

 

As a former Audi owner I'm getting a pretty big chuckle out of all you Mini owners warning against Audi repair histories.

I guess there are no Consumer Reports subscribers on this forum.

 

3.2 only. Unfortunately no 2.0t Quattro is planned for our shores. (though if one was I would likely not have my beloved Mini!)

 

Yes...there are many such subscribers. However, a lot of us were perturbed to see MINI marked down for insufficient cupholders, and other irrelevant-to-the-MINI-experience data. Somehow, motoring enjoyment never seems to make it as a category or comment in Consumer Reports' charts and/or reports!


Clover

 

I was referring strictly to reliability history. I use their "road tests" for toilet paper.

Make no mistake - I love my Mini, but I certainly am *not* expecting it to be any more reliable than my A4s, or any other Audi for that matter. The Mini has an atrocious reliability record.

And the comment about the interior of the A3 being cheap looking. Hah! It might be cheap looking next to another Audi interior, but next to a Mini it feels like a Bentley!

 

Really? I'd like to see where you collected that data. Please post the links.


Clover

 

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/...os/compare.jsp

Password protected portion of the sire though.

 

I'm still undecided. I haven't even test driven the A3 yet. But I'll take care of that this coming Saturday.

As far as sticking with MINI another go-round: I will take everyone's advice to look into other wheel and tire options. I've also noted that I do need to realize that the MCS '06 model is probably vastly different from my pre-spec '02, in terms of road compliance and build quality. My wife and I test drove a MCSa '05 on 16" rims a few months ago, and I did feel the difference then.

Of course, I'll do what makes me happy. That's the best advice anyone could give.

Sorry to the forum vigilantes that I posted to the wrong section. I hadn't posted in a long time (years).

 

The difference is night and day - just ask C4, this is his favorite topic (except for the price he got selling his used S privately)!

Go drive the A3, but go drive a new S, too.

 

Nice car but I always choose our 05 MCS first. It's just more fun to drive!!!

 

Pot holes you say, hey I know what you are talking about. Okla City rings the bell when it comes to crappy roads. I have posted so many bad roads in OKC threads that I'm sick and tired of talking about it.

I pulled my run flats off after about 2300 miles and went with a set of Yokohama's AVS 100's. I think they made a big difference in the way the car now rides.

It seems that if now I hit a bad spot in the road I at least don't lose a filling in the process. Those run flats rode very harsh IMO.

When I lived on the west coast, I almost sold my stock wheels for some real nice and light rims. Sure glad I held off, because the roads here in OKC would have destroyed most after market light weight rims.

 

Me too!


3 MINIs (2002, 2004 and 2005) and ZERO problems so far

 

I live in mexico city also known as the pothole capital (am speaking about holes the size of the car and deep as a well) and also had to replace many runflats so I changed to toyo proxes 4 and no problems since with tires or rims. I also own an Audi A4 2002 which has given me more trouble than the mini.

 

I lived in South America (Bogota-Colombia) and some of the poorly maintained roads could swallow your car, never to be found again.

If a car works well in South America (One of the toughest driving environments in the world) it can do well practically anywhere in the world.

I haven't been to Bogota in many, many years, but for what I have been told most of the city roads are as smooth or even better paved than city streets here in Miami.

 

Not true, I've have heard this from several sources, including close friends who have nothing invested in an opinion about it, who say that beyond the bits taken from the TT the interior materials are not as nice as the Mini. The feeling is that they are saving on their low cost car here and the quality is not up to other Audis.

PS: If you are referring to my prior post I never said it was 'cheap looking'.

 

Again, the quality is not up to other Audis. It's more like a VW...but it is way, WAY better than a Mini.

Let me reiterate, I love my Mini, but there are some extremely Fisher Price pieces in the car. Push up on the front maplight housing sometime - the entire thing moves around like it's mounted in Jello. Or grab the rear sunroof black plastic trim ring and move it around - it's a joke.

Having dismantled the interior bits of the Mini and an Audi, TRUST ME - the quality levels aren't even in the same league, much less ballpark. I think that the people who say that the Mini has nice interior quality are speaking about their personal preference of appearance (they like shiny things or retro things or stylish things). I'm talking about QUALITY - do things feel like they're solid, or do they feel like they were designed for a Barbie car?

It's not always about material quality - that can be a personal preference. It's also about how intricately close the adjacent pieces are, and how well they STAY where they're supposed to. I think that anyone who argues that the Mini has good interior quality is either biased or simply accustomed to a very low quality vehicle (American, hyundai, etc)

I am *NOT* bashing the Mini. I love mine - it is sooooooooooo much more fun to drive than my *highly* modified A4. But the interior material and overall build quality are not comparable at all.

 

On the subject of reliability I really think its often luck of the draw - there are plenty of people with Audi/VW/Porsche problems and horrible experiences (my SO is among them with a dog of a Jetta and wretched treament in the past) and, of course, the same can be said of BMW and other manufacturers. One thing that does come through though is the resale issue, and from what I have seen the Audis do not hold up as well as Mini or BMW, and that can be important.

Anyway, that said, this thread made me remember a site that someone created about his TT and related stuff

http://myaudittsucks.com/

 

Agree wholeheartedly. Anyone that knows anything about statistics knows that single datapoints are completely useless, no matter how enthusiastic or pessimistic the owner is about their vehicle.

Also - depreciation, or more accurately the lack thereof, was a big reason I bought the Mini. Audi depreciation SUCKS, period.