Audi TT (Mk2) | Shed of the Week
The best modern sports car you can buy for shed money? Discuss
Shed is wondering whether the chap in charge of writing the ad for this week’s sub-£2k has ever run into Mrs Shed when she’s been in a bad mood, which as regular readers will know is basically all of the time. Shed’s chin-scratching is related to the vendor’s apparent colour-blindness which, as Shed knows only too well, can easily result from a bonk on the head. The seller thinks that this gen-two Audi TT is in British Racing Green when it’s actually Scuba Blue. To be fair Shed is not 100 per cent on that himself, having only recently regained his own ability to see in colour after an especially resonant clonk on the noggin from Mrs S’s cast-iron lardy cake loaf tin, but he’s as sure as a man in his delicate state of health can be.
Moving on to more substantive matters, the 2006-on, gen-two TT was a very good car. It regularly won fulsome praise and awards from car magazines for being the best coupe in its class, so the arrival of a Mk2 in SOTW for the first time is worth celebrating.
What made them good? Well, for a start they were longer and wider than the gen-ones, adding a useful amount of additional interior space. There was more performance too. The EA113 2.0 turbo in the 1,260kg TFSI that we’ve got here had 197hp. With a six-speed manual box it did the 0-62mph in six and a bit seconds, going on to 149mph. The new TT’s general drive was further improved by the new bodyshell’s 50 per cent greater torsional rigidity, better multi-link suspension and a maximum torque figure of 207lb ft that came in from just 1,800rpm. That made it nicely punchy out of slow bends even when no quattro all-wheel drive system was present, as here (it was only standard in high-end models like the 3.2 V6 and TTRS).
TT handling was never what you might call sparkling or inspiring, being given to understeer in hard use, but it was safe and worry-free. Build quality was excellent and you could fold the rear seats down to create a surprisingly usable cargo space.
What about this specific example then? At first sight it looks like a good ‘un and on second sight it seems to improve. Unlike some smelly heaps we see on here this one is as nicely presented as all the other cars in the dealer’s stock. They say that there are no issues at all with it. Shed can’t see any dings on the largely aluminium bodywork and the wheels look spangly too. Better still, the £1,991 price includes a three-month warranty with breakdown cover, a service and a full pro valet, which it seems to have already had.
£1,991 might sound crazy cheap for all that but a quick perusal of the classifieds reveals that £2k is far from unusual for a 2007 gen-two TT with this sort of mileage. Most of the cheap ones you’ll see will be in the £2k-£2.5k range. Against that background, and with all the extras thrown in, our apparently unmolested shed does look like particularly good value. Last November’s MOT test showed an unthreatening list of consumables: a couple of worn brake discs, both front tyres down to 3mm and our old favourite, the slightly corroded brake hose ferrule.
Not only will this TT be cheap to buy, it will be cheap to run too with nearly 37mpg on the official combined cycle and an annual tax bill of £320. From an ownership point of view the absence of the potentially troublesome S-tronic auto gearbox or the tyre-chomping Haldex system are further points in its favour. The official servicing interval was two years but the TFSI engines’ partiality to a drop of oil means you’d like to be buying one that’s been looked at a bit more often than that. If this manual’s clutch has been changed according to Audi’s 60,000-mile recommendation it should be on its third one now. These are items to check in the paperwork. Ultimately of course the proof will be in the pudding, especially if it’s one of Mrs Shed’s Christmas puddings which are always at least 90 proof.
The first part of the dealer’s ads seem to be computer-generated. You’ll have your own views on that. It’s not something Shed is ever going to get into for the disposal of his small selection of used motors, because woolly terms like ‘sleek’ and ‘peace of mind’ as used by ChatGPT and the like cut no mustard with his main buyer, a flinty-eyed man of few words who operates from a quiet corner of the village barber shop and who Mrs Shed finds strangely alluring.
These are lovely all round cars I reckon. They feel light and nimble to drive, even if they're not the last word in driving dynamics(the Quattro version we had anyway). I like this shed a lot for definite.
All that said, I love an Audi TT and have since had a mk1 1.8T coupe, and am now in a mk3 TTS convertible which I absolutely love (as does my daughter when I let her drive it - though only with me in the car with her!). Notably, my TTS replaced a 987 2.7 Boxster and I'm glad I made the switch. I'm even looking at this one and wondering if I need a coupe in my life, as I had no idea the mk2 had come down to these price levels! Though maybe as a 3.2 this time....
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