Laurie

Hi Clifford, Thanks very much for your reply, I accept that its quite an old car and there are bound to be some defects, the difficulty is that here, in Mallorca, you are paying at least twice what you would reasonably expect to pay for such a car in the UK, it would be a pity to buy a liability on top of that. The best idea is, of course, to take anything that I am serious about buying to my own mechanic, but I am keen to do enough research prior to this before taking that step. I have probably seen 20 cars at this stage and non of them have been much good. The benefit of a dealer here is, that they all offer a 12 month warranty on engine and transmission. Thanks for your time.

Thanks for your reply Tony, I have looked at a 1.9 TDI and understand them to be very good, proven and reliable engines, I just found it to be a little underpowered, also looked at quite a few 2.0 TDI's, which I did prefer, but I hear about a lot of potential problems with the oil pump on these engines... of course, with a car of this kind of age there is always going g to be a degree of risk. Cheers Laurie

Hi all, I am thinking about buying a 2008 A3 1.8 tfsi I recently saw in a dealership, having done a test drive I got them to put it up on the lift and was a little concerned to see a fair amount of oil over the back of the engine which looked quite old and some more that looked very recent. I did check where the car had been parked in the dealers however and there was nothing on the floor. any ideas where this may be coming from, if it is a major problem etc. Any advice welcome, thanks for your time. Laurie

Hi all, I am thinking about buying a 2008 A3 1.8 tfsi I recently saw in a dealership, having done a test drive I got them to put it up on the lift and was a little concerned to see a fair amount of oil over the back of the engine which looked quite old and some more that looked very recent. I did check where the car had been parked in the dealers however and there was nothing on the floor. any ideas where this may be coming from, if it is a major problem etc. Any advice welcome, thanks for your time. Laurie