I own a 01 allroad with the manual. I also owned a 00 a4 avant, which I traded a month ago for a 06 GLI . Audi's are great cars, way easier to own than my 95 d1 ever was. I got rid of the rover to pick up the allroad. The allroad is a audi cpo. Maintence on both of our audi's have been done by mechanics, I really don't touch these cars. I did everything to the disco, and it made me never want to work on my daily driver again. All I ever did was work on the rover.
Having said that, the key to Audi ownership, and rover too, is finding a great independant audi mechanic. If you get a good one they can really save you money in parts and labor. Maintence is key on audi's, if they are not maintained they will have issues. I had a clutch put in my a4 (pressure plate, discs, seals, resurfaced flywheel) for $780 last spring. (Streamline industries SLC UT) So you can get reasonable labor and parts for these cars.
The 03, is it the 2.7t or the 4.2? The 2.7t will need turbo's some time in the future. The 2.7t also suffered a reduced brake size for 03, so I've read lots about warped rotors. The 4.2 is bomber, but only comes with the auto. The allroads has been better to us than the a4 was. Audi really picked up there game in 01 and improved QC. But the ar is more expensive than the a4, so things last longer. The drivetrain is pretty stout. The air suspension is great, but shit does happen. It should not scare you away from a clean, maintained car. You will loss wheel height sensors, about $120 from the dealer, and you can get a leaking airbag, but both are really not as common as you'd think. The abs module will go on it before 100k ... all of them do, rebuildable part, $300 repair.
Our allroad is fun,like a luxury 4 door snowmobile, better in the snow and rain than my stock disco was. Even better than my disco with a 3" lift and 235/85 bfg at's was in bad weather. It was the choice vehicle to get to Alta for skiing. You can take a ar pretty far offroad too. Fireroads are no problem for it. Offcamber,rocks and axle twisty stuff works too. The thing is it can never do any of those things if they are at all large. The unibody is stiff, but flexy compared to a rover. The overhangs and breakover on the audi are always an issue offroad. Way better than 90% of all suv's on the market, but jeeps and rovers are way better. I've pushed ours pretty far offroad, and realised I need another rover to go where I really want to. But as a grand touring, highway burning, light dirt road using vehicle, nothing is better in my book. We took our ar into the remote sections of dirt roads in wyoming. Rally driving fun, till we hit a rock hard and broke a bead on a tire(255/65/17, the twin spoke wheels). That's the thing with the allroad, it's not a s4, it's not a rover, fills all the roles between those.
The bad news is they no long import them. So 01 to 05 where the only years. The new one is rumored to be imported, but may arrive right after rover imports the defender, so don't hold your breath. All years you can get MT's, but only with the 6cly. I GAIC flashed ours, with evom diverter valves, ITG intake, a evom turbo inlet pipe ... about 375 hp with 383 lbs of torque at about 2800 rpm till 6000 rpm. I played with a M3 convertable, current body style, last night. Had wife, x2 70 lbs dog inside to. He got pissed that he couldn't shake me off ... he tried... hehe.
Good websites
like dweb --->
http://forums.audiworld.com/allroad/
the a4 side sucks of audiworld.
a great faq for ar's, including model year changes and options ...
http://www.allroadfaq.com/
factory build referance info, options, stand dimensions etc.
http://www.audiworld.com/model/
click on allroad.
Sorry for the book to read, let me know if you have questions, I'll try to find picts of our ar offroad and post them.
