# Found a quite cheap 98 A6 2.5 TDI for sale (not Quattro) - only 20K miles on it - safe buy ?



## Mawrick (Jun 26, 2004)

I'm looking around for a "day to day" car - at least for winter season (mind you not much winter here, so that quattro option isn't all that important to me).

But would this be a "safe" buy - it comes with a fresh MOT, I know I might expect cam problems later - but when does that normaly kicks in ?

Also what sort of milage can one expect from this engine, and is there any good option to chip it - eventually what sort of performance increase would one expect from it?.


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## MikkiJayne (Jan 1, 2007)

Hell no! The 2.5 is a ticking time bomb - avoid them like the pague! 

Audi tried to cram far too much valvegear in a small space on the 2.5, and also screwed up the manufacturing of the cams. The cams wear out prematurely, and they have a tendancy to spit the rocker arms out which then get mashed up in the rest of the motor, then the lifters pop apart and it loses oil pressure, then cascade failure follows soon after.

The later ones switched to roller rockers, but that wasn't until about 2003 MY. Even when they do work they are thirsty and expensive to maintain. The manifold designs are quite restrictive so max power with a chip is only about 200-210 hp. Any further than that and you have to replace the turbo & injector nozzles, and then you will likely blow up the injection pump which is also highly unreliable. God forbid you buy a tiptronic 2.5 TDI - its a race to see if the motor or trans will blow up first, and either of them will present you with a £3-4000 repair bill :banghead:

If you want an A6 diesel buy a 1.9 FWD manual :thumbup: The early 110hp will chip to about 130, and the later 130 will chip to about 150. The 1.9s are hard as nails and can go to 200hp/300tq with decent tuning, and get better fuel consumption than the 2.5s anyway.


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