Chat Just purchased an A2

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flashzero

A2OC Donor
Hello all,

I have very recently purchased our first Audi A2 and I can't stop raving about it.
It's a 2000 1.4 TDI, 100k on the clock with full service history and it still looks and feels really really good.

The previous owner did some modifications to it, front light clusters have an LED strip in them and I think the interior lights have been changed as the colour of the lights is more blue-ish than the standard yellow-ish. The rear windows have also been tinted.

Overall the car is in excellent condition, but I have bought a replacement drivers-side door handle & a hazard switch as the ones already in the car are a bit worn.

Mileage wise I have been getting just over 400 miles out of a tank from my daily commute (Leicester to North London) - this is mostly on the M1 but I do drive around 20 miles a day on coutry roads as well. Is this what I should be expecting?

Future mods I'd like to carry out / have done to the car are:
  • 5th gear mod (already sent a PM to Mike after reading various posts on these forums)
  • Rear drinks holder & the one by the handbrake (one of the negative points of the A2 IMO is a serious lack of storage)
  • Replace the stock concert cassette player, unsure with what though. Will probably install my previous Kenwood system for now until I decide on a double-din Audi system.
  • Armrest is a must!
  • I'd like to have heated mirrors, can this be added on?
 
Hi and welcome to the A2oc and A2 ownership. It sounds like you have got your self a great example :)

It sounds like your milage is about right. People get between 50mpg and 70 mpg depending on set up and driving style conditions. There is plenty on hear to read to give you tips.

The rear cup holder and hand brake storage compartment are available from your local dealer or Stoke Audi do decent prices. See them on here.

I got a arm rest from the real italian leather company and very happy with service and quality.

Heated mirrors are the easiest mod. All wiring is in place. Just replace the mirror glass with heated ones. A 5min job to swap over. The oem ones are your best bet. Aftermarket ones do not alway fit.

Cheers

David
 
Welcome!
Did you buy the car from a forum member? Those mods sound like those that some have done on here!

Anyway - yes, 400miles from a 2000- era (which means the smaller 34litre) tank is good - you can always calculate the MPG when you re-fill, and if you're keen on monitoring your MPG you can use a website like Fuelly to track consumption and it also gives you a snazzy "My MPG is xx" graphic to go into your forum signature as many on this site have done (not me, not yet anyway!)>

Heated mirrors can indeed be added on very simply - the wiring is in situ, you just have to buy the parts. The genuine heated mirrors from Audi are pretty expensive (about £80 for the pair I think) but at least they fit properly - the pattern ones off Ebay don't fit well at all.

There are some armrest mods available - suggest you do a search here as I know some have fitted.

The rear drinks holder is very useful - again just buy the kit from Audi. In fact go to Stoke Audi Parts as they do mail order and offer a forum discount (although they won't post out the heated mirrors as they don't want the glass to risk getting broken!).

5th gear mod is excellent if you're doing a lot of motorway cruising (I have this), but I would recommend you get a remap done in order to maintain lower-speed drivability with the longer 5th gear. A good remap is about £250 and will give you up and over 100PS quite easily without smoke. Stealth Racing are very experienced with remapping A2s.

If you want to get better MPG by cheaper methods first, you could easily consider adding the "Aero mods" - a couple of small lip spoilers for the front wheel arches, a sub-frame spoiler for under the car and a exhaust tunnel cover to give a flatter floor. When done together they will give you a small but useful MPG boost. Again Stoke Audi Parts do it as a full kit mail order. Here's their website.

http://www.stokeaudi-parts.co.uk/

No connection to seller!
 
Lord_A said:
...
Mileage wise I have been getting just over 400 miles out of a tank from my daily commute (Leicester to North London) - this is mostly on the M1 but I do drive around 20 miles a day on coutry roads as well. Is this what I should be expecting?
...
Click to expand...

The 'miles per tank' measurement can be unreliable because it really depends on when you fill up, and when the pump first clicks off (which in turn depends on how foamy the diesel was). I 'vent and brim' to try to make it a bit more predictable. Try to work it out in terms of MPG. A lot of us keep track of tanks via the 'fuelly' website.

As David says, MPG is very dependant upon driving conditions and so forth. For motorway driving, the most important variable is your top cruising speed on the motorway. Keeping mine at 60mph I usually get 530-560 miles/tank (74-75mpg), typically 32-33 litres each time. I have some of the mods which Dan mentions.

Anyway, welcome to A2 ownership :) I love mine.
 
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Thanks all for the replies.

riverlad -
I have seen the rear cup holder on Stoke Audi but thought it was pretty expensive! I'll hold out for now & hope to find one on eBay or a breakers. Thanks for the info on the arm rest, I'll have a look at their products. Regarding the heated mirrors...how does one switch them on then? I don't have a 'heated mirrors' button anywhere on the car.

dan_b -
I will start using Fuelly soon, by my calculations I have been averaging around 61mpg so far which I am pretty impressed with. I've been in touch with Mike about the 5th gear mod but I'm still reading about all the options available, which ratio did you go for? Regarding remaps...I haven't read much about this yet, but it seems that some people chip the cars too so I'm unsure what the best thing to do is, still need to research a bit more on that one.
Thanks for the info on the aero mod btw, I did see it mentioned in some members forum sigs but wasn't sure what it was. Out of interest, what is the difference between a TDi 75 SE and a TDi 75 SE Plus?

MikeMarsUK -
95% of my driving is on the motorway but I find it a struggle driving at 60mph. I know it doesn't make that much difference in time but I just find it boring, I tend to let the engine rev to 3k rpm on the motorway (I'm sure you know how much that is in mph :eek:)
 
The cup holders are quite pricy I'm afraid. But inerspensive and Audi are not to words that go together lol

They are wired up with the rear window demister, they come on when you switch that on.

Regarding remaping or chipping my view is to go for a remap every time. A good quality remap is personlised for your indervisual car. A chip is just plug on so you will not get the same results. I got mine remaped at stealth racing Vince knows more about remaping A2s than any one else in the business.
This is my remaping thread
http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?12292-Another-1st-class-job-from-stealth&highlight=

Cheers

David
 
Hi there.
If you want to buy the rear cup holder then your best bet is to buy a new kit from Audi - they come with a few fitting components which I'd think you'd be unlikely to get from ebay or a breakers.
The heated mirrors switch on automatically when the car senses the outside temperature to be low enough to require them. Your car (as a 2000 model) will also have a diesel-powered auxiliary heater (called a Webasto) which you'll discover will kick in as the nights get colder - you'll suddenly see smoke coming from beneath the front offside wheelarch one morning and wonder what's going on!

Chipping/ remapping -pretty much different words for the same thing. Only thing I would say is get it done by a reputable agent and not one of these dodgy things off ebay. Stealth come well recommended on this forum. I've got an Amd/Revo remap and there are plenty others who do it too. I went for the 0.568 5th gear ratio which on my remapped 75 is a really good combination of better m-way cruising whilst still being useable at lower speed. The car will bimble along at 35mph in 5th if you're in slow-moving, but flowing traffic. Obviously it won't pull away much at that speed in that gear but as I'm on the A3 and A316 a fair amount where traffic sort of mutates along at anything between 30-60mph, the car will happily keep up with all of that in 5th gear.

My "TDi SE Plus" is my way of saying my SE is not exactly standard spec any more :) I've done quite a few mods like the longer 5th gear, FSD suspension, remap, aero kit, along with retrofitting cruise control, heated mirrors, leather seats, Bose...
 
lol thanks to both of you, your replies are very much appreciatted.

I was just showing the car to colleague and noticed that the tax disc on the car says £125 PL6 - that can't be right! I thought the TDI is only £30 a year?
 
Aah, unfortunately for cars first registered before 1 March 2001 car tax is based on engine size as official CO2 data was not uniformly available.
Engine 1549cc or smaller – 2011/12 rate = £130 per year (£125 in 2010/11)
Engine bigger than 1549cc – 2011/12 rate = £215 per year ( £205 in 2010/11)
 
Ah dammit of course :(
Well I'm very dissapointed now! All mods are cancelled, the search has begun for another TDi SE now.
What a bummer as the car looks and feels brilliant for its age & mileage. :mad:
 
Lord_A said:
Ah dammit of course :(
Well I'm very dissapointed now! All mods are cancelled, the search has begun for another TDi SE now.
What a bummer as the car looks and feels brilliant for its age & mileage. :mad:
Click to expand...

Seriously? Are you really going to sell this on and replace it on principle of £95 a year in VED! Most impressive, I hope you find another car you are as happy with :)
 
Lord_A said:
...MikeMarsUK -
95% of my driving is on the motorway but I find it a struggle driving at 60mph. I know it doesn't make that much difference in time but I just find it boring, I tend to let the engine rev to 3k rpm on the motorway (I'm sure you know how much that is in mph :eek:)
Click to expand...

I find that patience is the hardest part of getting good MPG :) The reason it varies so much by top cruising speed is due to aero drag. The aero drag goes up by the square of the speed. Roughly speaking, the aero drag at 85mph is double the aero drag at 60mph (7225 / 3600). Keep in mind that we are talking about airspeed here, not groundspeed. So you can go quicker with a tailwind and keep the same MPG.

Given your cruising speed, the 1.2L aero pack would be beneficial to your MPG. I'd guess that with all 3 items installed your CD will go down from 0.28 to 0.27 or thereabouts, giving you a 4% improvement in aero drag, & hence a 2.5% or thereabouts improvement in MPG.

I'd agree with Murdo that the difference in car tax is probably not worth it for changing the car now. The tax bands are liable to change every time the budget happens, so you have no guarantees that the 120g/co2 band will still exist in a years time.
 
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murdo said:
Seriously? Are you really going to sell this on and replace it on principle of £95 a year in VED! Most impressive, I hope you find another car you are as happy with :)
Click to expand...

You're right, I was just a bit gutted when I realised it was going to be more than £30.
Car is going really well, so far so good so I'll be keeping it for a while, until I find a nice TDi with OpenSky
 
Thanks for the info there MikeMarsUK!

I'm still not sure about installing various mods on this TDi.
Now that I've had an A2 for a couple of weeks I love it so I'm on the look out for another TDi SE with OpenSky & put all the mods on that instead :)
 
dan_b said:
Welcome!
Did you buy the car from a forum member? Those mods sound like those that some have done on here!
Click to expand...

I bought the car from a trader in Coventry (Craig Pace) but having now looked through all the paperwork that I got with the car I'm sure that it did indeed belong to a forum member, don't know which one though!

It has had cruise control fitted by someone on the forums (name escapes me now) & it has been mapped as well but not by stealth.

It's a dark blue TDi SE & it had a personalised license plate of 'A4THA' - ring any bells?
 
Sounds like it might have belonged to Arthur?

Lord_A said:
I bought the car from a trader in Coventry (Craig Pace) but having now looked through all the paperwork that I got with the car I'm sure that it did indeed belong to a forum member, don't know which one though!

It has had cruise control fitted by someone on the forums (name escapes me now) & it has been mapped as well but not by stealth.

It's a dark blue TDi SE & it had a personalised license plate of 'A4THA' - ring any bells?
Click to expand...
 
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