Audi company car just gone back 3 years 72,000 miles and no problems 2.0 tdi only topped up oil twice.

Take whatever your budget was for the Audi,and start looking for a Skoda Octavia Est for the same money. Simples.

Or Exeo ST / Leon ST

When I see those JD Powere falut numbers I find them confusing. Even the best cars have more faults than any car I’ve ever owned by a factor of ten or more. After four years with a Dacia I’ve only had one fault fixed by the garage, a rear window wiper that sometimes didn’t stop for a long time when turned off. And one minor niggle, the seat belt warning noise sometimes doesn’t notice I’m not wearing a seat belt when turning around in my garden.

The real reason Skoda’s might be more reliable than an Audi is that they are based on the previous model so all the reliability niggles have been dealt with in the first generation VW/Audi variants of the car.

That’s not entirely true.

I would agree an A4 S-line of that age will have suspension too harsh for me. I bought an 09 3.0 Tdi Avant and after driving a number of S-line and SE’s, some on 17″, some on 18″ and one on 19″ wheels I eventually found an SE on standard suspension and 17 ” wheels. It was comfortable and, with the badges removed suitably anonymous. I would agree with the opinion above having driven both at the time that an s-line driven back to back on UK roads at anywhere near legal speeds was less enjoyable than the car I had.

But others might think the looks better than the drive experience, or enjoy having the subtly improved turn in the stiffer suspension gives and can live with the ride, I fully understand that.
As far as reliablity is concerned, in the 4 years I owned the A4 I had £550 of repairs completed ( noisy HP fuel pump pullley) of which Audi picked up the bill for labour as goodwill as it was out of warranty so I paid about £250 IIRC.
The Skoda Superb that replaced the Audi I also had for four years and it had a door locking switch on the drivers door replaced. Thats all.

It’s a good job we have STW because clearly there are no other alternatives available to research the relative merits of potential car purchases. It’s almost like this thread is motivated by something else…

It has roof rails and a decent boot.

Are you sure you don’t have an A6?

It’s almost like this thread is motivated by something else.

That something else being what? Go on, clue me up, rather than leaving that post on a teasing cliff hanger.

FWIW I bought the car. Thanks to all who replied in the spirit the thread was intended!

To be fair I thought your original post had the air of troll about it, or #humblebrag.

Not sure I understand why ‘humblebrag’. Although I can see why you might call troll. Unintentional, either way.