This is also unimpressive in the extreme

Has sticker in car

I'm actually strongly considering just parking this in my driveway and not using it. Much rather just drive one of my real cars if I'm using the same amount of fuel lol!

 

Audi, not that long ago, once had some of the most impressive interiors in the industry, with obviously high-quality materials. I used to note that in my reviews.

 

They're out of reach here, or getting there. There are so many apartments with rents over 2 grand around, that's nuts.

Of course not every resident is a homeowner... umm duh. But yes, all of my friends.. my close friends own real estate. It's not that mind boggling. Lol our mortgage, you'd laugh if you knew what it was. I will note that the majority of them got in (including us) before interest and home prices skyrocketed. Our home I have a few complaints about it but I'll never move, having a 3% mortgage and said joke of a payment. And a house that has almost tripled in value in 7 years. I hate renting, owning this home and property and having massive equity is security, makes me feel secure.

I will say you sure as shyt ain't gonna find anything NEAR as nice as about a decade ago for 300 grand. Knoxville is still somewhat affordable, but areas/homes that used to be easily accessible aren't anymore... and you won't find a decent (or decent sized) home in West Knoxville south of Kingston Pike for under half a million. Our house is nice and has several selling points but the location, literally out of all those friends I mentioned.... BY FAR our house is in the best location... convenience wise and niceness-wise. (It's not a competition between us friends... just pointing out facts.)

 

How does it drive? And yeah I know, loaners get old.

 

Yeah, and that fact just makes something like this Q5 all the worse.

 

Thats always been the case when comparing them to low end luxury marques.

Not in the lower end stuff. I never found the interior of any Q5 generation very impressive.

This idea that "first time homebuyers can't buy" is just not true. We help first time homebuyers all the time, yes its expensive but most millennials and gen Zs have two incomes, and they make it happen.

 

Sure, but I mean if we were in the same financial/income situation then and trying to buy now, our house wouldn't be where we want it to be nor nearly as nice but yeah we'd still get one. We really lucked out with a great starter home, solid UMC neighborhood. That's great for a first house. I can't stress enough how great the location of my house is. If we ever did sell it wouldn't be on the market long, thats for sure... just the location alone.

 

I always say in the DC area nobody can afford what they want, where they want it to be. Thats really true, you either buy the type of house you want and deal with it being in a location that isn't you preference, or you buy the location and deal with the house not being what you want it to be. Thats true regardless of your budget.

 

Here I'm having my cake and eating it too. The complaints I have about my house are small, and minor. I'd love a bonus room and a 3 car garage.... that's about it. I have a really nice house that's nicer than what we thought we'd get, in seriously a to-die-for-location.

 

True but man....it's a 60k very up optioned car that's supposed to be a mainstay car for Audi. It's shocking how "meh" the car is overall or my expectations are just very distorted

 

I am reminded why I hate dealers.....

Audi is calling me about the black W12 and telling me the TSB I sent along doesn't apply to the car because the car is not listed by vin even though the TSB is for the TVDs that were made before a particular timeframe and said TVD is THE EXACT SAME PART NUMBER as the 6 other models that DO have the TSB. What is gonna happen is they will replace the output flange seals, reinstall the axles, and then the axles are going to leak because they failed to reseal the caps and bolts after removing them.

The service admin (because the writer gave up/didn't even want to deal with the car) is INSITING his tech is master certified and that "anything she says I trust and she is the one we put on the complex cars" but interestingly enough when I asked how many of these she has seen I got no answer other than repeated "she is a master tech" and would not confirm if she has taken the W12 specific training or not. She is also saying the scope readings I sent along are "wrong" and not relevant to the prior lean at idle code (you can see the injector waveform for cyl 3 is not the same as 1 and 5 on bank 1) but what do I know I guess!

The only thing that comes to mind is "these Fing morons don't know this car well enough" and that the tech 100% has never seen one of these in her life. The fact she didn't know it's a 4 bank engine or what a scope readout is feels fantastic.

 

@Striker223 the new audi jaguar XDDD

 

Uh oh, doesn't sound good at all. Might be a good idea to try a different Audi dealer. I don't know how much of a pita that would be for you but I wouldn't want that "master tech" touching it.

With newer Audi interiors being discussed I went to their website to look at their lineup. I feel like Audi is in a dangerous spot. Their entire lineup is very unappealing to me. I remember one of @GS69 sales posts recently and the numbers were pretty ugly. VW especially.

 

glad you've got a good situation and you're happy with it. and hopefully you don't have major expenses too often (new roof, new a/c, etc). i find real estate to be more a hedge against inflation than this 'great deal'. besides your great mortgage payment you have property taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc. but yes as the years go on generally real estate goes up, in part because every seller wants to make back the giant realtor fees they'll incur so it's basically a pyramid scheme. until it isn't and we have a market crash. florida right now is seeing prices decline in some areas because the hurricanes made insurance climb a lot in coastal areas, and that condo building that collapsed in miami caused new legislation to pass that's meant all condo owners are being assessed more for unplanned inspections and possible repairs. these large assessments scare off potential buyers. plus if you listen to canadian doom sayers, lol, they're selling their places in florida in protest. i've no doubt others will be picking up those 'bargains'.

also, i know you've said you're 'never' moving, but for many that's not possible and when they have to move, they likely have to pay the same or more than what they're selling (especially factoring the huge losses from selling AND buying realtor fees). yes the whole value might come in handy when dementia begins to set in and you can then pay to go into a home!

that's called compounding inflation and realtor fees! as you know, $300k could buy what, 5 LS400's back then, and now $300k will maybe buy 3 LS500's.

and you're their worst nightmare of a customer.

 

The question I always have for people who poo poo owning a home is “do you own or rent?” And 99% of the time they own. That’s the real metric…

Bottom line is, very few people want to live in a rental when they can live in their own home, and overwhelmingly why people rent and don’t own is they can’t afford to own or don’t think they can afford to own. If you are a sharp investor you can absolutely beat real estate as an investment in terms of return, but most people aren’t and that’s why for most people in this country their home is their largest source of wealth, and why the average net worth of a homeowner is exponentially higher than the average net worth of a renter.

I’ve owned two homes in my life, the first I made no money on. I bought my townhouse in 2007 right as the market was beginning to really get hammered in the financial collapse, and I sold it in 2021 for $7,000 more than I paid for it. BUT, I put 5% down on it and walked away with about $100,000 because of the principal I had paid off. At the time I was paying about $1,000 a month more than I was paying to rent the same unit across the street (taxes, insurance, everything) at 7%. Over those 14 years the rent value had gone up to be about what my mortgage payment was. So, owning vs renting probably cost me about $20,000 over the course of that time, or about $119 a month. Small price to pay to be in charge of my own housing, and be able to paint and improve and decorate the way we wanted.

We bought our house in 2021, and I put that $100,000 down because it was found money and financed the rest at 3%. It’s gone up in value about $300k in the past 4 years, and I am paying about $1,000 a month less than a comparable home would cost to rent. We’ve put probably $80,000 into it, finished the basement redid the bathrooms etc.

So, I’m doing fine, and nobody can give me notice to vacate or tell me what colors I can paint the walls.