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Jamie
Don't worry about your "friends" at work-if they cause you any more trouble they will find Yogo brochures landing on their door mats at regular intervals.

How's the Leon going?. I will admit to seriously considering going back to the Leon (or new Ibiza) but plumped for a Corolla. Picked it up today-great car!.

My SEAT dealer had pre-reg 1.6S Leons with delivery miles and metallic for £10k-nearly £1300 of list so it was tempting but the Corolla won the day!.

Steve - 2002 1.4SE petrol, Silver, black/black interior, Then an identical replacement 2003 A2. Now a Toyota Corolla 1.6 T-Spirit
 
Steve,

Well with the crap that you endured via the grand Audi name we all surely hope that this time around you benefit from the reputation of Toyota reliability – and from what I understand cheap but top class dealer support.

Anyway after you have owned the car for a week you must give us the lowdown on how best you might compare it to an A2. Of course comparing anything to an A2 is not an easy task, but I’m sure you will find something interesting and constructive to comment upon.

Regards
John Disdale
 
Test drove both TDI and FSI today.

TDI is more noisy than the 1.9 TDI, but then again that's in a larger car with more insultation. It is a very good engine though. In gear acceleration very good, and I think 4th gear is the best, pulling very strongly from 50mph. It had no problems tottering about in 5th at 40mph, and 4th is good at 30mph. It spins at about 3000rpm when travelling at 80mph, which is good.

The FSI is a very refined engine, as long as it keeps working. The vibration only seems to occur if you are not working the engine, so during my test drive out in the sticks it didn't come about once - then again it could be down to the know variation in A2 build quality, and the Battersea FSI may have had a problem. But in terms of useable power, the engine is pants. Apart from accelerating from a standing start, it's a chore to wait for the engine to get going. I got the feeling that once your moving, the TDI may well be faster.

Anyway, the TDI gets my vote. And after an hours test drive, it was down to the nitty-gritty. Delivery in 10 weeks and a discount of £450 is what he could offer me. I want one as soon as possible, so he was frankly trying to find a nearly new one or a new one that may be waiting on the docks for an owner (apparently Audi supply popular specced models on the off chance there are buyers who want knew, are not worried about the spec, and want them now). There was one unregistered in Cobalt blue, but not the spec I wanted and he was not willing to take any more money off. Newly new there are quite a few, but again nowhere near the spec that I want. They have a Sept 2002 TDI SE he was willing to take £1000 off the £14k price, but it neither has rear electric windows nor DIS.

I showed him a print out from tins.co.uk showing that they give a £900 discount on the spec I wanted. He couldn't believe it as he claims that their margin is only £500 or so. He said that the Met paint + ECC offer is taken out of their profits by Audi, and not from Audi's, so their profitability has taken a huge hit - no wonder they offer peanuts for A2 trade ins! He thinks it could because Tins is an internet spin off for the Pendragon dealer chain, which means they have much lower overheads.

Now I'm stumped. I don't want to buy new (losing £2500 in a heartbeat is not my idea of a good time, and I don't want to wait that long), and nor do I want to spend £13,000 on something that I would not be fully happy with. Poor guy, I left him pretty depressed. He'd spent 3 hours with me, desperate to seal the deal, and now he thinks he's been screwed as I might be off to Tins for my new car. I sure he was telling the truth, and they just cannot compete.

In terms of extras, all I want is ECC, met paint, DIS and rear leccy. I cannot believe such cars don't exist.
 
Karcsi,

I cannot access the Audi UK website, but if you take a look I cannot believe that it will be impossible to find a low mileage TDI of the basic specification that you require.

Regards
John Disdale
 
You're right, there must be. But it is a bit of chore working through all the cars on offer. Most don't say whether they have rear electric windows, just electric windows. And a lot of the 52 reg ones say they have Chorus radios, which suggests it's the 2002 model even though it is a post September 2002 car. It'll be a real hassle working through them all, phoning up the dealerships to find out what the car really is. I suppose it's just something that has to be done if I want to save some money and get what I want.
 
I hope you find the car you want Karcsi and don't have to wait too long. It's bizarre that you can't find one you want second hand. If you keep hunting you are bound to find one. I have also noticed that the Audi website is an absolute dog to get into at the moment and has been like this for a few weeks. It's as if they have degraded their service and have reduced bandwidth.

Runboy, my Leon is going great. It's still a bit boring and run of the mill but still also the best car I have had. I was very tempted to change car AGAIN and get a new mini. Drove the One and the Cooper which were great fun to drive but wasn't willing to have to drill 4K into the deal to get the spec I want (crappy trade in price-not just A2's that suffer from this). After much carefull probing of the Seat Cupra.net forum I have decided to get my Leon chipped instead which should keep me interested.

Hope the Corolla serves you well. I reckon that after I have a few years experience and no claims under my belt that I would go for a Lexus IS200. Toyota reliaility sounds the business. Hope I'm not tempting fate for you!?! I'll just shutup and go.

Cheers,

Jamie.
 
The audi site is fine for me. What I hate is having to trawl through the 100 or so TDI's on offer. Why they don't include a filtering system I don't know. Also, it would elp if they added whether it was a 2003 model (then again, they don't want to make it obvious that two 52 reg cars are not the same!).

Found an TDI SE in Birmingham, but turned out to be a 2002 model. I think the car will have to be something like a Oct/Nov 2002 for it to be 2003, as most Sep 2002 ones would gave been ordered before the revised model was available.

Thanks for the good wishes. Hope one turns up soon.
 
Karcsi
If it's any help,my week 38 build A2, delivered 1st/2nd week of Sept 2002 was a 2003 model.

Steve - 2002 1.4SE petrol, Silver, black/black interior, Then an identical replacement 2003 A2. Now a Toyota Corolla 1.6 T-Spirit
 
Karcsi,

I had a FSi, with 4k on the clock, the same as mine, on Saturday whilst mine was in for repair. You are making the right choice with the TDi. At first I thought the FSi was brilliant, really nippy, quick getaway, but then it seemed to run out of oommph! Just poodled along like it was on a Sunday drive. It was quiet to drive and it took me ages to get used to the clutch, really sharp. It had a red interior, which I really quite liked. It also non electric rear windows, they really look awful! No DIS, didn't realise how useful it was until its gone - bit like the boyfriend.

Fi

2002 TDi Sport Cobalt Blue
 
Fiona, you mentioned that you got yours as a pre-built car waiting for an owner and got a good deal. Was this during or outside of the climat+met pain offer?

The reason I ask is that the dealer was insistent that he could not give more than £400 off because this offer had already eaten £1000 into his margin. So even on the prebuilt car he could get hold of he could not give more than £400 either.
 
It was during the offer, even so, can't remember figures without finding the paperwork, I got leather and erw for nothing. I did loads of research, different dealers, different models, new, used and armed with this I went to my dealer with all the hard evidence and said, right what can you do, as I so want to buy the car from you. It seemed to work.

I'll look thru my stuff and see what I can dig out. The dealer told me that it comes from the dealerships profit and not Audi's, but I'm afraid I was unimpressed and said so? Wasn't going to fall for any sob story, it's always the same, they wnt to get as much from you as possible and you want to pay as little as possible, just have to strike a happy median.

Fi

2002 TDi Sport Cobalt Blue
 
Karcsi

Just paid 13680 for a TDI SE with climate and metalic, car was registered by the dealer and had 34 miles on it. Not sure if it was part of the current offer, but got the impression that the deal made the dealer wince! I think they needed the sale, or I hope they did!

Andrew - 2003 1.4 TDI Silver Climate
 
That's pretty good. That car was about £14,875 when new - assuming those are the only extras. Cheaky sod at Hitchin wanted to sell me a unregistered warehoused car (not my colour or options) for the same price as a new one! I have a feeling that he read me wrong, and let a sale get away. I think he thought I was desperate for a car, and in reality I'm not too bothered. However, I am choosy about the spec of the car I buy and expecially the price.

I think the climate+met paint offer has been going non-stop since about September, or even before. I think the first deadline was 31 Dec, and now it's 31 March.


Fiona,

Thanks, that would be great if you could find something.
 
As well as FSI vs TDi - what about 1.4 petrol vs TDi? All help greatfully received. By the way, what should i look for in a 1999/2000/2001 model please/ And what is this about the windscreen wiper?
 
Yes the never ending Climate/Paint offer - now showing 20 March 2003 !

From what I could gather from various dealers when buying our car half of the discount was being funded by the dealer, approx £500.

You can always try some of the UK sourced websites such as drive the deal or tins and see if the dealer will get near their prices.

Dave

1.6SE
 
I tried showing them the £900 discount tins were offering, but they claimed their profit margin was only £500 or so, so could not even match.

Took a look at drivethedeal. £1050 discount offered!! And it claims the car is provided through a main dealer - does that mean the same 3 year warranty?

That puts paid to the either that they deal with only a very small margin. If two websites offer 5% discounts, then the Hitchin dealer must have been trying it on.
 
quote:Originally posted by Karcsi

Took a look at drivethedeal. £1050 discount offered!! And it claims the car is provided through a main dealer - does that mean the same 3 year warranty?
Click to expand...
It does - I ordered mine through drivethedeal and after a couple of initial contacts with drivethedeal, the car was ordered and delivered as per normal through a main dealer - Whetstone Audi, North London.
quote:That puts paid to the either that they deal with only a very small margin. If two websites offer 5% discounts, then the Hitchin dealer must have been trying it on.
Click to expand...
Whetstone Audi didn't give me the full discount on the ECC/Metallic paint offer - since it partly comes out of their margin anyway - but on the list price I saved a rather pleasant £1,600.[8D] of which £500 or so was Audi's contribution to the ECC/paint offer.


--
m. Azure Blue 2003 1.6 FSI SE | OpenSky | ECC | DIS | Isofix | ERW | Symphony II (duff) | Space-Floor-Box | Winter Pack | Auto-Dimming Rear View thingy...
 
How does that work? Did you get the car for the same bottom price, but with an effective higher discount because the climate and met paint were calculated at their normal prices?

The £1000+ discount that drivethedeal quotes is from the £250 offer price, not from the peoper list price. So a £15,650 A2 TDI SE with met, ECC, rear ele wins, sideguard and DIS for about £14,650.



What's the auto dimming rear view mirror like? Any use? Does it ever get confused and dim during the daytime, or when your passenger switches on the courtesy light to read a map?
 
Poppy1

We have a 1.4 Petrol and, unless you push it hard, it is very refined and quiet (real big car ambience which even my wife commented on after she drove my daughter's Micra), performance is fine and economy reasonable (around 40 so far). It does not appear to have the bittern under the bonnet like the diesel which is probably a big advantage since Audi do not appear to have a solution. I cannot compare with the 1.4TDI since my wife does not like diesels and so we did not test drive one. So far after 5 months we have no regrets at all - but then we have not sampled Audi's after sales service yet - will try to get the locks re-programmed for free soon!

Ian

2002 1.4 Petrol SE, silver with climate control.
Why are all the A2s in Lichfield are silver ? ? ?
 
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