A4s (and to a slightly lesser extent all other Audis) have been, up until very recently, among the most unreliable new vehicles for sale since the model's inception.

Combine that with expensive Audi parts, expensive and zealous dealership labour, and they are unbelievably expensive to maintain.

I own a 2006 that I bought for a song--I do my own service, so I was willing to take a bit of risk. The cars are very difficult to work on, even an oil change involves special tools and working around a poorly laid out engine bay. It takes me twice as long to do as any other car I've done.

The previous owner of my car put 120,000km on it. I only have the last 50,000km or so of records, but in that time it was towed to the dealer at least twice according to the service records, and she spent upwards of $10,000 on regular service ($250 oil changes? yep) and fixing broken stuff that shouldn't break at that mileage (turbo blowoff valve, ignition coils on more than one occasion, brake lines, the list goes on). She spent over $1000 on every trip to the dealer in that time.

I do not understand anyone who buys a new Audi, or for that matter any German car. It's ridiculous.