A reluctant Audi A6 Avant purchase, and a BMW saga.
Discussion
Evening fellow PH'ers. All was ticking along very nicely in the world of D4MJT recently, I have an M140i which I love and Mrs D4MJT had a Mini Cooper, which she also loved.
Then my latest modification to the M140i required a rejig of the fleet:
For reference, you can put an isofix seat base and a baby seat in a 3 door M140i, but only if your front passenger is under 5ft 3" and doesn't mind having their seat slid forward into the dash. Handily Mrs D4MJT is 5ft 2", however we have 2 dogs and now a pram, so this made things a bit trickier. We couldn't fit a baby seat in the Mini at all hilariously, as the 2 rear seats are quite sculpted and deep at an angle so the base sits oddly and has no rear ISOFIX, and you can't turn the front airbags off, so handily it made perfect sense to sell the Mini.
The hunt was on for a daily family weapon and dog chariot deluxe. Mrs D4MJT's criteria was simple. She wanted to easily be able to carry a baby, isofix base and seat, pram and associated bag and gubbins, luggage for a family to go away camping, 2 dogs, any family shopping required, and retain the exterior proportions of a 3 door Mini Cooper as she hates big cars.
We compromised through the medium of me plying her with copious amounts of wine post 9 months of abstinence whilst shopping online for a nice BMW 5 Touring.
I'm a fussy sod, so I had a fairly strict criteria myself. I had a budget in mind, and I wanted an M Sport LCI (facelift) car, so 07/57 onwards, ideally with cruise / pan roof / electric heated seats and decent audio. I also ideally wanted a 530d and pan roof, but would have settled for a 520d.
I'd have loved a 535d, however my budget was bottom end of the decent 535d market and talking a risk on a cheap one seemed like a world of pain. It honestly couldn't have been much worse after this saga
I don't mind travelling for the right car and spec, and before long I found a nice 520d Touring, elec heated seats, good history, black leather, nav, LCI and heated seats. Sadly I was north of Newcastle, and it was in London. The dealer was good though, sent me photo's, and I booked myself a train ticket and set off. The test drive went well, the car was lovely. I paid in full.
Sadly, as I literally drove off the dealership forecourt, it suffered total brake failure, with the pedal going rock solid and dropping to the floor providing no braking assistance at all. I limped it round the roundabout and returned it. In fairness to the dealership, I don't think they had any idea and they dealt with it very well. He provided a full refund for the car, paid for my rail ticket down to London and back up, and paid for a taxi back to the station for me.
Never to be put off, I kept an eye on my various alerts and watches, and a week later a lovely 530d popped up for sale. Electric Heated Leather, pro nav, 6 disc CD, LCI, adaptive xenons and cruise. Ideal. It was reasonable mileage as well at 127k. The snag was it was in Bournemouth. As luck would have it, all of my pals were tied up, so my long suffering wife decided it would be an excellent idea if we had a debut family trip.
So the wife and I, our 3 week old daughter and 2 dogs piled into the 140 and set off on the 6 hour drive to Bournemouth. Which after feeding / dog convenience / driver sleep stops, only took a mere 12.5 hours. A lot was learned on this trip.
At least the car was brilliant though. Drove wonderfully on the test drive, history was good, and the dealer was again great. I paid for the car and we set off for the dog friendly B&B we had booked in nearby Somerset, 49 miles away.
All was going very well, for 38 miles until the gearbox in the 530d imploded
Sadly it was very terminal, and it resulted in a total loss of drive, remedied only by a 5 minute stop at the roadside before restarting, and then gingerly driving another 7-8 miles at a time trying to manually shift it into 3rd and keep it there. Still, it limped to the B&B.
it was returned (slowly) to the dealership the next morning for another full refund and apology. They also refunded me for the tank of fuel I'd put in which was decent of them.
Now, I'm not superstitious, but I can take a hint. So I sacked off looking at E61's at this point. I wasn't able to increase to a decent F10 budget, so I decided to reduce the budget substantially instead and go back to what I know.
Enter the £2k Audi A6 Avant 1.9TDi PD130.
Now £2k is pretty steep for a 17 year old A6, however this car has been maintained very well by a colossal Audi geek. It's got 150k on the clock which is pretty low for both the year and drivetrain, it's a 6 speed manual, and it's a nice spec with some decent mods. It's a factory Sport model with a bit less chrome trim, factory Bose and rear window pull up blinds and it's had a full heated Recaro leather interior from an Allroad / RS6 of some description fitted, along with a slightly more modern touch screen JVC double din that does bluetooth and streaming audio etc. It's got a dog guard for the dogs, a cavernous boot, it returns 650 miles to a tank of diesel, and so far I've put 2000 miles on it and nothing has exploded or fell off.
The pics are from the seller or mine and appalling, so apologies.
It's a bit old school, but it gets along fine for what it is, the steering is nice, the suspension is showing no signs of needing attention yet which is good as I'm fully aware how horrendous a job that is, the dash has actual dials which tell you useful things, like oil temperature and coolant temperature. The BOSE is pretty good for the age, and the ride is nice.
If you got this far congratulations. It's in need of a driveshaft and some wipers and probably a service, so that's next on the list shortly. I'm quite looking forward to having a tinker, as it's been a while.
Then my latest modification to the M140i required a rejig of the fleet:
For reference, you can put an isofix seat base and a baby seat in a 3 door M140i, but only if your front passenger is under 5ft 3" and doesn't mind having their seat slid forward into the dash. Handily Mrs D4MJT is 5ft 2", however we have 2 dogs and now a pram, so this made things a bit trickier. We couldn't fit a baby seat in the Mini at all hilariously, as the 2 rear seats are quite sculpted and deep at an angle so the base sits oddly and has no rear ISOFIX, and you can't turn the front airbags off, so handily it made perfect sense to sell the Mini.
The hunt was on for a daily family weapon and dog chariot deluxe. Mrs D4MJT's criteria was simple. She wanted to easily be able to carry a baby, isofix base and seat, pram and associated bag and gubbins, luggage for a family to go away camping, 2 dogs, any family shopping required, and retain the exterior proportions of a 3 door Mini Cooper as she hates big cars.
We compromised through the medium of me plying her with copious amounts of wine post 9 months of abstinence whilst shopping online for a nice BMW 5 Touring.
I'm a fussy sod, so I had a fairly strict criteria myself. I had a budget in mind, and I wanted an M Sport LCI (facelift) car, so 07/57 onwards, ideally with cruise / pan roof / electric heated seats and decent audio. I also ideally wanted a 530d and pan roof, but would have settled for a 520d.
I'd have loved a 535d, however my budget was bottom end of the decent 535d market and talking a risk on a cheap one seemed like a world of pain. It honestly couldn't have been much worse after this saga
I don't mind travelling for the right car and spec, and before long I found a nice 520d Touring, elec heated seats, good history, black leather, nav, LCI and heated seats. Sadly I was north of Newcastle, and it was in London. The dealer was good though, sent me photo's, and I booked myself a train ticket and set off. The test drive went well, the car was lovely. I paid in full.
Sadly, as I literally drove off the dealership forecourt, it suffered total brake failure, with the pedal going rock solid and dropping to the floor providing no braking assistance at all. I limped it round the roundabout and returned it. In fairness to the dealership, I don't think they had any idea and they dealt with it very well. He provided a full refund for the car, paid for my rail ticket down to London and back up, and paid for a taxi back to the station for me.
Never to be put off, I kept an eye on my various alerts and watches, and a week later a lovely 530d popped up for sale. Electric Heated Leather, pro nav, 6 disc CD, LCI, adaptive xenons and cruise. Ideal. It was reasonable mileage as well at 127k. The snag was it was in Bournemouth. As luck would have it, all of my pals were tied up, so my long suffering wife decided it would be an excellent idea if we had a debut family trip.
So the wife and I, our 3 week old daughter and 2 dogs piled into the 140 and set off on the 6 hour drive to Bournemouth. Which after feeding / dog convenience / driver sleep stops, only took a mere 12.5 hours. A lot was learned on this trip.
At least the car was brilliant though. Drove wonderfully on the test drive, history was good, and the dealer was again great. I paid for the car and we set off for the dog friendly B&B we had booked in nearby Somerset, 49 miles away.
All was going very well, for 38 miles until the gearbox in the 530d imploded
Sadly it was very terminal, and it resulted in a total loss of drive, remedied only by a 5 minute stop at the roadside before restarting, and then gingerly driving another 7-8 miles at a time trying to manually shift it into 3rd and keep it there. Still, it limped to the B&B.
it was returned (slowly) to the dealership the next morning for another full refund and apology. They also refunded me for the tank of fuel I'd put in which was decent of them.
Now, I'm not superstitious, but I can take a hint. So I sacked off looking at E61's at this point. I wasn't able to increase to a decent F10 budget, so I decided to reduce the budget substantially instead and go back to what I know.
Enter the £2k Audi A6 Avant 1.9TDi PD130.
Now £2k is pretty steep for a 17 year old A6, however this car has been maintained very well by a colossal Audi geek. It's got 150k on the clock which is pretty low for both the year and drivetrain, it's a 6 speed manual, and it's a nice spec with some decent mods. It's a factory Sport model with a bit less chrome trim, factory Bose and rear window pull up blinds and it's had a full heated Recaro leather interior from an Allroad / RS6 of some description fitted, along with a slightly more modern touch screen JVC double din that does bluetooth and streaming audio etc. It's got a dog guard for the dogs, a cavernous boot, it returns 650 miles to a tank of diesel, and so far I've put 2000 miles on it and nothing has exploded or fell off.
The pics are from the seller or mine and appalling, so apologies.
It's a bit old school, but it gets along fine for what it is, the steering is nice, the suspension is showing no signs of needing attention yet which is good as I'm fully aware how horrendous a job that is, the dash has actual dials which tell you useful things, like oil temperature and coolant temperature. The BOSE is pretty good for the age, and the ride is nice.
If you got this far congratulations. It's in need of a driveshaft and some wipers and probably a service, so that's next on the list shortly. I'm quite looking forward to having a tinker, as it's been a while.
Edited by D4MJT on Wednesday 31st July 23:24
Nice! Just done a sort of similar thing myself. Ended up with a 2004 passat pd130 on a colossal 76k miles (it really is the nicest passat around in my opinion for its age)
With a mighty 2660 mile road trip looming, I couldn't think of a single car I would trust more than one equipped with a pd130 engine! Enjoy!
With a mighty 2660 mile road trip looming, I couldn't think of a single car I would trust more than one equipped with a pd130 engine! Enjoy!
Glad you got sorted in the end mate. I'm lucky that Mrs Toon loves a big car so we have an XC90 for the family stuff. I've still for the child seat in my 3 door but he's 3 now and forward facing so not such a big deal. I wouldn't care, my uncle has just sold his A6 estate, same shape as that. He's in his 70's so its had a good life! A little bit more local to you too ;-)
Unlucky with the E61s. my workmates have a 520d, 530d and a 535d E61 and all have been lucky really with their overall reliability (535d having some random issues with pas aside).
I presume you had an R53 mini? After producing Mk1 the wife refused to get rid of her R56 (takes the baby seat fine via isofix base) but is slowly realising that as Mk2 is due shortly that 2x kids, 2x car seats + 2 x transportation devices for mk1 and mk2 does not fit in a mini...
She however is very fussy, it has to be another Mini.
I presume you had an R53 mini? After producing Mk1 the wife refused to get rid of her R56 (takes the baby seat fine via isofix base) but is slowly realising that as Mk2 is due shortly that 2x kids, 2x car seats + 2 x transportation devices for mk1 and mk2 does not fit in a mini...
She however is very fussy, it has to be another Mini.
Looks to be in very good condition and a good spec for its age too. Someone has clearly taken care of it, with the Recaro upgrade and some other little details I can spot but won’t bore everyone with.
I’ve got one, a 5 speed saloon on a 53, and about to hit 165k. It’s looks a bit shabbier than the photo (below) these days, as the two (original) front wings are corroding from inside out unfortunately. Still soldiers on like a good barge does though.
I’ve got one, a 5 speed saloon on a 53, and about to hit 165k. It’s looks a bit shabbier than the photo (below) these days, as the two (original) front wings are corroding from inside out unfortunately. Still soldiers on like a good barge does though.
Holy 3 year update batman.
I've still got this. It's still predictably reliable and doing a perfectly good job. It's just about to tick over to 180k, and it needs a clutch, so that's tomorrow night / saturday's job.
As someone else previously predicted wisely, I did end up doing the front suspension, it was horrendous. The pinch bolts did not come out.
It has all new suspension now though and drives like a dream still.
Top barging all in all. I'll get some pictures of the misery that will undoubtedly ensue during the clutch change.
I've still got this. It's still predictably reliable and doing a perfectly good job. It's just about to tick over to 180k, and it needs a clutch, so that's tomorrow night / saturday's job.
As someone else previously predicted wisely, I did end up doing the front suspension, it was horrendous. The pinch bolts did not come out.
It has all new suspension now though and drives like a dream still.
Top barging all in all. I'll get some pictures of the misery that will undoubtedly ensue during the clutch change.
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