I could be wrong, but I’ve not seen any other C3 Audis on the streets here for some time. But there may well be some hiding somewhere. These two are in clear sight, but the 5000 Quattro in the driveway looks like it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. And the 200 Quattro at the curb showed some signs that it isn’t exactly a daily driver. That’s hardly surprising.
Since this is badged as a 200, it’s a 1989 or later, but I’ll let those more knowledgeable chime in on that if I got it wrong.
According to my Encyclopedia of Import Cars, the 2.2 L turbocharged and intercooled five pot was rated at 162 hp. Not exactly a staggering number, but there were ways to make that number bigger, and even stock, this was a fine performing touring car.
The 5000 CS Quattro had the same engine; in fact it was pretty much the same car as the 200, as that was really just a name change in 1989 to make the line consistent with the new 80, which arrived in 1988.
The bright and low sun ruined this shot, but it does show the broken headlight.
As a bonus, there was also this very vintage Starcraft conversion Suburban. Sadly, no pics of the undoubtedly heavily tufted and plush interior.
Related reading:
My CC on the Audi 5000/100 is here
Here’s one on the 5000CS Quattro by B. Saur
And my take down of the Audi 5000 UA Debacle
I had purchased a used 1985 Audi 5000 for my daughter as her high school car. Being a car enthusiast family the older Audi fit right in and she was proud of the car. Sadly we had nothing but continuous problems with it for her two last years of high school. We were getting tired of working on it so much and the down time. So we sold it and bought a low mileage 1985 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for her graduation. That turned out to be a very dependable car and the guys thought it was cool !
That said, despite all the problems I loved that Audi. I thought “Hey the odometer didn’t work so maybe it just had too many unknown miles”. (By the way all Audi 5000/200/100 odometers go bad!) So I bought two verified low mileage Audi 5000 vehicles. One was a 1987 Audi Quattro 2.3 and the other was a 1984 Avant. They had 38,000 miles and 24,000 original miles. I spent all my free time over the next 5 years fixing these two Audi’s. Both had the same problems, so these were just over-engineered junk! I finally sold both of them. I learned a costly lesson that you need to cut loose a troublesome car even when you think you have it all sorted out again and again. I now daily drive a dependable 1979 Ford Thunderbird and have a 1992 Miata project. My wallet and garage time thanks me.
I’m curious about the all the same things that went wrong. Tales of woe and intrigue, please.
I am always reminded of a caller to NPR Car Talk who had a not that old Jetta with three power windows that failed with an estimate of something like $1800 to repair them. Or of course the VW Quantum owner who was told they had to find a Quantum mechanic. For Peugeot owners their first suggestion was to find a mechanic named Pierre, which was not entirely unserious.
Love it! You got a car so bad, you thought “Surely that one was a dud” – and disproved it, twice over.
Very appealing cars, even now. For someone not me, of course. Your story of them seems to be universal.
In the world I lived in at the time, this Audi was the Buick Electra of its time, and the Toyota Camry was the Chevy Impala.
What I mean by that is that upper-middle class families had one of these as the family sedan, and working-class families had a Camry.
Similar comment from me on the love/hate relationship. Loved the stylish German clean design, ride comfort, handling, and smoothness of the 5 cylinder. Hated the frequent service issues and electronics failures – ultimately the entire digital dashboard went blank. I had a 1987 5000S, bought in 1991, and only within my price range due to the plummeted sudden acceleration depreciation at the time. I did not buy it for status but that seemed to come with it and may have also elevated my social standing in the community for having “good taste”, haha. Several trouble-free cross country road trips made for great memories, but looking back, I would never tolerate something so troublesome today.
Here is my partial list of what failed on all my Audi 5000 cars:
Door handles break unless repacked regularly with grease, Window regulators fail, Window switches corrode, Wiring from the driver’s door break inside the footwell from flexing, Electric mirror failures, Rear window defroster failures, Pneumatic door/trunk lock vacuum pump fails or system has vacuum leaks, Climate control vent door system failures, Blower motor makes high pitched noise, Heater core will leak, Wiper speed module fails activating them randomly on bumps, Engine computer failures, Odometer fails followed by the speedometer, Shifter bushings fail, Steering rack leaks, hydraulic pump leaks, Brake accumulator fails, hydraulic system failures, Parking brake cable seizes, rear calipers parking brake pivot seizes, Bosch fuel injection sensors regularly fail, CIS fuel injection warm weather starting has surging issues (root cause of unintended acceleration scare), CIS fuel injection has hot vapor lock re-start problems due to fuel that does not recirculate, Fuel injector leak down failures and seal failures, Master cylinder failure holding too much residual pressure when hot, electric cooling fan controls failures, Rear end seals leak, Rear suspension links wears out prematurely, Antenna coaxial wire corrodes internally due to electrolysis, Electric antenna fails while at the same time draining the battery, Batteries need regular replacement due to the after-run cooling fan system, Ignition switches fail, Electronic ignition system failures, Plastic distributor gear fails, Idle compensator failures, and the hits just keep on rolling…
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? 🙂
Must have been great, considering that Rene used the phrase, “all my Audi 5000 cars.” I stopped after one, having only experienced a couple of memorable recurring issues.
I hadn’t gotten this far when I commented above!
Haven’t seen one of these in a long time.
I’ve only seen one of these in the past several years. Rather memorable – it was in beater condition and parked at a Dollar General. The man who drove it was a rough-looking person, and just after I pulled in, he raced out of the Dollar General parking lot and down the main street in town. After I was done shopping, I happened to pass him, about a half-mile away and pulled over by the police. Later that day, the car was right there, by the side of the road. I’m sure there was quite a story behind that car and its driver.
On the bright side for a beater Audi 5000 the door handle worked, the engine started, it apparently performed well enough to be noticed, and then the brakes worked as well as apparently the anti-theft device.
Some days you’re the pigeon, and other days you’re the statue…
I owned a 1985 5000S that that drove well but was a typical C3 reliability disaster, and later I owned a 1979 5000 (C2) that was an infinitely better car in all respects except (arguably) style. Reliable, solid, and a great highway cruiser.
When I lived in Dallas, Texas, my family and I had dinner at Magic Pan restaurant one evening in 1982. All of the sudden, my brother saw something so unusual through the window and alerted us to that strange object outside. It was one of the first Audi 100 (C3) built and was brought to the United States a year before Audi officially launched 5000. That 100 had the German numberplates (I couldn’t remember the city prefix) and European headlamps (not the hideous sealed beam headlamp capsules).
Unfortunately, we were still eating and couldn’t just take off to have a closer look. That car’s smooth, futuristic aerodynamic body was so unusual and really jumped out amongst the boxy, orgami cars. The sighting left a deep impression on us for a long time.
The more I read the more I get the impression I must have been one of a very small number of c3 owners who did not have any reliability disasters, expensive fixes or weird breakdowns. After a C2 turbo back in 1981 I had a 84 turbo, a 86 and a 89 turbo quattro and all of them did a good job as daily drivers with all workdays starting at 4.30 am. Would have gone mad if I had had such a reliability trouble!
Yes, resale value was not as good as expected but performance and economy were more than good. All Audis needed proper maintenance – but that’s one of my hobbies.
Today I am back with a 1981 C2 turbo garaged for summer use only, among others.
Joe
Did you have the dreaded cracked exhaust manifold with either loose or broken studs? It would sound like a slight lifter tick when cold then seal up as it heated up and expanded. I have not found anyone with over 90,000 miles that could say no. All 3 of my Audi’s did this.
These were rightly praised when new. But there’s a twist to that: that’s for a manual, which gave decent performance and high-speed enough to admire the wind-silence, room, good handling, and fuel economy, all making it a superb cross-country tourer.
As delivered to non-Europeans, however, they were expensive cars. Such buyers only got automatics, and did a lot of town driving, wherein they were mighty sluggish. The resultant flat-footing everywhere meant the economy dropped like a stone, and things like the A/c were only euro-adequate. When you add the, er, shall we say, euro-delicacy of many parts and their tendency for early retirement, you’re not left with a very impressive product (which left a final poke in the eye with awful resale on the way out).
A big pity, that. I’ve always liked them a lot.
A few pop up for sale each year here, but I haven’t seen one in the metal for probably ten years now.
On the forums we used to have a saying about the power and fuel economy:
“The power of a four cylinder with the economy of a six”.
That said, I sure liked how those 5 cylinders ran on the open highway and the sound they produced.
Have one for sale ,1987 5000cs turbo 128k very good condition.located in RI