Faults:

Glovebox latch cable broke, so was unable to open the glovebox at all.

Air conditioning failed one day after purchase.

General Comments:

Very quick for a diesel, and the stepless transmission was just excellent. Very good motorway cruiser, giving 45mpg even at 80+mph with minimal noise.

Not very happy with things like the aircon crapping out at such a low mileage, though I believe this isn't unusual for an A4.

Faults:

Only one fault on the vehicle, which was a sensor on the brakes which flashed up a brake fault on the DIS display.. when the vehicle had been left overnight replaced under warranty (dealer lent me an A5 3.0 TDi whilst it was fixed.. nice!)

Apparently a common fault.

Otherwise completely faultless.

General Comments:

The 3.0 TDi engine is amazing.. simple.. the torque is incredible and the economy superb for such a big lump with four wheel drive. I regularly get 45 mpg on my commute, which is 40 miles mix of country roads and motorway into city.

Tyres make a huge difference, Dunlops on from factory; I replaced them with Michelin Pilots.. transformed it.

Quattro handling.. what can I say, I'll never go back to a front wheel drive..

S-line spec makes the car.. factory sat nav upgraded for free by dealer to latest spec with traffic messaging.

Went 19600 miles before needed service.. pricey but..

Faults:

Remote locking failed. Apparently a common fault, being affected by mobile telephones. Required firmware upgrade and 2 days off the road.

Auto-opening boot unreliable. Dealer unable to fault.

Squeak from driver's seat.

Nearside headlamp badly affected by condensation. Renewed under warranty.

General Comments:

It's not all bad. The engine is phenomenal - it will pull strongly in 6th gear and returns tolerably good economy. The boot is huge. The interior light package is very nice. The Bose stereo is good. People admire it, and it's not a BMW.

On the down side, the climate control is unconvincing - never really seeming to do very much about significant discrepancies between external and internal temperature.

There is no MP3 or DAB stereo option (Vorsprung Durch Techik, anyone?).

There are more (i.e., some) cockpit squeaks and rattles than I'd have expected from Audi. I HATE squeaks and rattles in a car. And the interior design is rather sombre (black and silver), although I acknowledge that this is a matter of personal taste.

Most annoyingly, my dealer tends to return the car saying that it's working perfectly only for a defect to recur, sometimes within minutes. This is very vexing indeed. My A4 has been off the road for, I think, 5 days in the first year of ownership for warranty attention to relatively minor faults, many of which have recurred.

In summary, I miss my Alfa Romeo 147. The dealers were no better than Audi, but there was more of a sense of joy about the car. If only I'd been able to put the A4 engine in it...