Today’s Nice Price or No Dice A6 Avant is an Allroad, a model derided by some as being one of the flakiest models Audi has ever offered. It still has its defenders, and this particular one looks extra nice. Let’s see if there’s any defending its price.
A common insult in politics right now is to call an opponent “unserious.” It’s party-agnostic and is both vague enough and yet precise enough to be effective for all occasions.
If you wanted a vehicle that could easily be considered unserious then last Friday’s 2006 Chevy SSR would very likely fit the bill. Basically a stylish pickup with a Corvette drivetrain, the SSR in general, is neither a very good truck nor a particularly good stand-in for the Vette. At $33,400, our clean, low-mileage candidate wasn’t terribly pricey, but according to many of you, it wasn’t a steal either. The result was a fairly serious 76 percent No Dice loss.
No one has ever accused the Germans of being unserious. Especially not when it comes to building automobiles. The 2005 Audi A6 Allroad Quattro we’re looking at today is about as unserious a car as the Germans would allow back when it was built.
Audi introduced the Allroad model for the 1999 model year as an adjunct to its A6 Avant Quattro wagon line. Clad in fattter black plastic fenders and bumper caps and riding high on a standard air-shock suspension, the soft-roader was initially intended as a stop-gap model before Audi could get its proper SUV, the Q7 in buyers’ hands. Driving the Allroad was a choice of a 2.7-liter bi-turbo V6, 4.2-liter V8, or — outside the U.S. — a 2.5-liter V6 TDI. Remarkably, the car was made available, even in the U.S. with a manual transmission, offering up to six speeds for all your shifting pleasure.
The A6 Allroad proved popular enough to stick around even after the introduction of the Q7, Q5, and the like. In fact, there exists a plethora of similar plastic-clad high-waisted wagons from Subaru, Volvo, and Mercedes that proves that the general design is easily considered a crowd-pleaser.
The original A6 Allroad is also considered one of the most vexing vehicles Audi has ever produced. The twin-turbo V6 engine is crammed into the nose of the car making even minor maintenance like a thermostat replacement a bumper-off, front of the engine teardown effort. The clever air suspension, with its two-inches of adjustable ride height, is also a pain point on the model, with shocks and pumps failing without warning requiring either an expensive replacement or retrofitting with fixed-height regular shocks.
Still, there’s something extremely appealing about the C5 A6 Allroad and for those with owning one residing unchecked on their bucket list, the recommendation would be to get the best example out there.
This 153,000-mile silver and gray car seems to be just such an example. Per the ad, it’s one of 312 U.S. market cars equipped with the six-speed Getrag manual, and here that’s operated through a brand-new clutch and flywheel. The 247-horsepower 2.7-liter V6 is claimed to have a good timing belt and looks clean under the hood. Both brakes and the pricey air suspension are said to work as they should, as does the A/C.
Aesthetically, the car benefits from having painted flares and bumper caps. I’m not certain if that’s a factory job or done by a previous owner, but it does make the car look… well, a little more serious. Avus-style alloys underpin and appear to be wearing tires with decent tread.
In the cabin, two-tone black and gray leather covers the seats and spills over onto the door cards. Everything looks to be in great shape from the gunwales down, including, amazingly, the netting behind the front seats. There are also some very satisfying vacuum lines in the boot area to enjoy. On the downside, the headliner is pulling down behind the moonroof, pillowing on both sides above the rear seats. That’s going to be two and a half pains to fix.
In the car’s favor, the title is clean and it carries current tags. All that comes with an asking price of $12,500.
The Craigslist ad for the Audi has been up for more than two weeks now, so perhaps that price is not in the car’s favor. Or, maybe too many people have heard the Allroad’s reputation and are scared fecal-absent at the prospect of owning one. Whatever the case, we’re here to help.
What’s your take on this Allroad and that $12,500 asking? Does that seem like a fair deal for so cool a car in its present condition? Or, is that a totally unserious asking?
You decide!
Calabasas, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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