I was recently shopping for a new family car and enjoyed an extended test drive of a 2000 Audi A6. This happened to be a dealership service loaner (non-Quattro) with about 9000 miles - Silver exterior, black leather interior.

Performance:
The 2.8 liter 6 puts out 200 hp and is quite adequate at moving the rather large sedan along. Handling was impressive and predictable, but you will realize you're driving a heavy luxury car. The tiptronic automatic gearbox was very responsive. This system is unlike many automatics which allow the driver to select the gear (and maintain it). It actually allows the driver to go to redline in the selected gear before automatically upshifting.

Safety:
Standard safety features include dual airbags, side airbags, head curtain airbags, anti-lock brakes, child safety seat anchors in the back seats, and (if equipped) the legendary Quattro all-wheel drive system. Luckily, I didn't need to try any of these out first hand, but it is nice to know they're available.

Ergonomics:
Overall, the ergonomics related to driver position, seating comfort and adjustment is good. Even the daytime visibility of gauges and other displays is acceptable; however, nighttime displays leave the driver trying to decipher information from a virtual sea of disorienting uniformly distributed redness. I realize that wavelengths of red light preserve night vision adaptation. That's only really an advantage if you are in persistent darkness for long periods of time (if memory serves, rods take about 20 minutes of darkness to begin to adapt). Exposure to street lights or bright lights of an oncoming car and that adaptation can be lost. So, do we really need the red displays?

Apart from the research issues, I simply found it difficult to find anything with all the red glow coming from the dash. The other negative was the limited rearward visibility due to the unusually thick rear pillars. Even with the generous number of positions afforded by the power seats, for shorter drivers this may present a problem.

Value:
If you are looking for a used sedan with great safety features, a lot of style, all the creature comforts you could imagine, and exceptional German engineering - look no further than the A6. Shopping online, there are many 98-99 examples which range from $16K-$20K, usually with some mileage remaining on Audi's standard 4yr/50K mile warranty. It's really hard to find a new car for that price with as much to offer. The other advantage to buyers is that a lot of these are off-lease cars (originally leased in 98-99) which have been dealer serviced. So give your Audi dealer the VIN and he can get the complete history!