Audi

The address of this page was a stock listing on a used-car dealer site that no longer exists. The stock is gone; what follows is a reference to the marque itself — what you will meet on the UK used market, and what is worth checking. Nothing here is offered for sale.

Audi’s badging is consistent and worth learning before you shop. TDI is a turbodiesel, TFSI a turbocharged direct-injection petrol, quattro means four-wheel drive, S tronic is the dual-clutch automatic and tiptronic the torque-converter one. An S or RS prefix marks a performance derivative.

The gearbox is the expensive item

On the models that use it, the S tronic dual-clutch gearbox is the component that most often produces a bill large enough to write off the car’s value. Reviewers report failures costing into four figures on the Q5, and the box has its own scheduled oil and filter change that is routinely skipped because nothing obviously breaks when it is. Ask to see that service in the history, check reverse engages cleanly, and treat jerky low-speed shifts as a fault rather than a characteristic.

The EA189 emissions recall

Volkswagen Group diesel engines from the EA189 family — the Euro 5 1.6 and 2.0-litre TDI units built up to 2015 — carried software that altered emissions behaviour under test, and were recalled across Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Skoda. Whether a particular car was affected, and whether the fix was applied, is a matter of record: check the registration on the DVSA recall service.

Everything else

Diesel Audis of this era use a cambelt on a fixed interval in both years and miles, so establish when it was last changed rather than assuming low mileage means it is not due. Reviewers also flag control-arm bushes, ball joints and power-steering assistance failure on the Q5, and electrical niggles around air conditioning and tyre-pressure monitoring across the range.