Audi A2 - thoughts?

[PieArseSquared]

Hello. I am thinking about getting an Audi A2 because I think our current car is too big, and I like the all-aluminium lightweightness (that's a word, ok?) of the A2. I'd be looking at a petrol I think, as so much of my mileage is around town, sadly.

Has anyone had one before, or own one now and have any thoughts on one as a main family car (3 of us). The boot is reasonably sized, I think - would it be able to cope with clothes, shoes and 'stuff' for a holiday without roof bars do you think?

Quirky but well below average reliability. I knew someone who was looking for one, went to view a few but they were dogs so gave up in the end and bought a Civic which was a much better choice.

Thanks. They don't seem so bad in terms of reliability, although from what I've read the petrols are a little less reliable than the diesels.

It's odd though -reliabilityindex website lists the Civic (previous shape) as 'Good' for reliability and the A2 as (not quite) 'Poor' - but then you look at the detail and the average A2 is older and has done more miles than the average Civic, but despite that spends less time off the road and has a cheaper average repair than the Civic - so I 've no idea how their ratings work :)

Obviously a lot of them are getting old now (in fact the newest one is 10) but they still look modern and I think are of a size that would be about as small a car as we could manage with, which appeals to me.

Well you know what Audi stands for?

....sorry, couldn't resist ;)

No idea, evelynj, sorry!

It's odd though -reliabilityindex website lists the Civic (previous shape) as 'Good' for reliability and the A2 as (not quite) 'Poor' - but then you look at the detail and the average A2 is older and has done more miles than the average Civic, but despite that spends less time off the road and has a cheaper average repair than the Civic - so I 've no idea how their ratings work

What's difficult to understand? The word 'average'? Those metrics are average figures. If e.g. the Honda is off the road once in its life for a total of 2.11 hours costing £319.32, it's a damn sight better than an Audi A2 being off the road 100 times in its life for 204 hours in total and costing you £31,591.

You'll notice those figures I've used still give the same average figures mentioned on Reliability Index (for obvious reasons).

Aha - I'd assumed that the 'time off the road' measure was in 'hours per year', as it's basically a meaningless statistic if it doesn't contain any measure of frequency, as you point out.

It looks like you're right though - it is meaningless :/

It's not meaningless - the overall index gives the comparison based on Warranty Direct claims. From the "What does this mean?" link next to the actual number:

"The UK Reliability index takes into account all factors of a repair, the cost of the parts and the frequency of failures ...

"Separately to this figure you can also look at the average cost of repairs for a particular make or model, a car with a good reliability index and a high average cost would imply that the frequency of failure is low, however when it does fail the bill will be a lot more than the average."

Emphasis mine.

Arsehole Usually Driving It ;)

I had one. It was reliable, ok with petrol.