1988 Audi 80 Quattro - good idea?

_HighVoltage_

Captain Volvo
Joined
Aug 5, 2006
Messages
9,964
Car(s)
1998 Volvo S70 T5M
I saw an ad for a 1988 Audi Quattro, 5cyl, 5spd, fairly close to my area. It looks good in the pictures and the owner says it is running good. However he did not say how many miles it has...My guess is 200k.
Do any of you know whether these things had a timing chain, or were they with a normal belt? Any idea how much it would cost replacing the timing belt/chain? At this mileage I'm guessing I will have to do it.

The price is $1200obo. Do you think I should do it?
I've driven 4cyl 80-s before and I liked them a lot...except from the ride, which was close to that of a Cadillac.
 
Only thing I know is that two friends of mine lost their Audi 80s during to Carb fires on the Autobahn.... no quattros though....
 
Well, this one is Fuel Injected.
 
Back home in Romania, my parents had 3 Audi's. All of them had the inline 5 powerplant. I remember them like yesterday, they had a white 80 and 2 dark grey 100's. They were bulletproof cars when it came to the drivetrain... The only problems they had with them were the suspension, which got a lot of wear since they drove like maniacs... On the technical side of things can't help you much, they were great cars for their time built like tanks.
 
For $1,200 it will be a POS. That is one of the cars you absolutely need a complete history on.
 
And even then.... The Audi 80 was known for electrical problems up to and including fires as well as very weak transaxles/gearboxes - at least in the US.
 
Thanks guys! The car has the 2.3 10 Valve motor, and the owner's GUESStimated milage is 130,000 (the odometer stopped working 2 years ago). He also told me there is some sort of "valve ping" it also needs rear brakes, headliner and a driver side window.
And these are just the things he told me on the phone! Who knows what else will come up when I go see the car on Sunday.
I'll keep you updated.
 
after you buy the care you should swing by 034motorsports (and their forums motorgeek.com) for plenty of go fast parts
 
Sounds like a decently fun car anyway. Pretty slow, but the AWD and manual trans would help keep it entertaining. I'd try to talk him down a few hundred though, based on the problems you listed. Unless it's just in immaculate condition otherwise.
 
Ok guys, I just came back from looking at the car.

Definetely I'll pass.

My biggest concern with the car were the timing belt (never changed) and that "valve ping".
As soon as I heard it, I knew what it was - I've already had this on my VW Polo back in Europe. One of the valves starts making rattling noise at around 2500RPM. It costed me $600 back home, where maintaining VW is cheap, I only imagined how much it would cost me to fix this Audi here.

The search keeps on...
 
good on ya. I would have advised against it anyway. If you could have gotten it for stupidly cheap (5$ obo) then it might have been a nice "project" car, but otherwise?

Besides, if he has to guess the mileage, and already tells you over the phone all the crap thats wrong with it, i hate to think of the stuff he ISN'T telling you.
 
Top