AUDI A2 1.6 FSI SE 5dr (2002)

AVOID

I'll say some good things before I start ranting.

The high seats on the Audi A2 are really good for visibility, and also for getting the kids in and out.

It's a nippy little beast, good acceleration and very strong mid range for overtaking in a jiffy. That's balanced with very good fuel economy, so win win.

Right then, the problems...

I bought the Audi A2 second hand with a four month warranty (should have heard the alarm bells with that really) which turned out to be pretty pointless anyway cos the dealer clearly was going to try every trick in the book to delay and avoid doing any work at all on it.

The problems are too many to list. The first problem that spring to mind in my Audi A2 was the air mass meter (I'd never heard of that either). It's when you start learning about new parts of cars that you know your car is having too many things go wrong.

The engine mgmt system had a problem that was sort of fixed but it seems to have been a bit more lacklustre since. Coils had problems (not cheap), the stereo as well. The cam belt was the most recent one. I don't even want to count the cost. It's actually had a quiet spell for repairs over the last six months, so I might sell up before my luck runs out!

Apart from the repairs, the rear visibility is very bad, and the spoiler on the A2 is in a very odd place on that note. The parking sensors help but some things you just need to see. Driving along the blind spots can be pretty tricky too. I've nearly taken out a couple of cyclists on turns. Annoying, unreliable and dangerous. Need I say more? Oh and the boot is an absolute joke. If you want to store anything apart from a few days shopping in the back then you need to take the back seats out. It's nice that they come out like that, but it means you have to put them somewhere, and if you go somewhere and you find you want the back seats, then you can't. Silly.