'91 200q not as bad as thought-basic gosh gollies

[Beatty, Robert]

Anton,

With reguards to your exhaust problems.  You can most likely completely
replace your exhaust for under 300$ if you get some custom mufflers and have
a local shop weld it in.  If your out in california then there will be no
need to bother with stainless and you could go with an aluminumized system
and you can save a few bucks.  I priced completely changing out my exhaust
on  my 87 5ktq and increasing to 2.5" exhaust would have cost me about 225
including cat, a pair of bullet glass packs and a muffler.  I figured on
spending about 100$ on install at a shop, perhaps less as that was the one
thing I hadn't checked on.  The site I got my pricing info from was
http://www.a-1mufflers.com/  I called the guy up and he was very helpful.

While this doesnt fix all your problems, i do know replacement exhausts for
Audi's arent cheap when bought new.  This is one way to help you save some
$$$.

Good luck

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Gaidos, A. [mailto:agaidos at got.net]
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 12:24 PM
To: Quattro; Audi20V List
Subject: '91 200q not as bad as thought-basic gosh gollies


 I went down to the shop to review the basic gosh gollies regarding my
wife's '91 200q rust bucket and the owner of the shop does think the car is
worth repairing. The first thing is the knuckle for the upper rear arm. It
is corroded to the point of being a safety issue. The parking brake cables
and adjuster is a total loss and will need to be replaced. He's not sure if
he can save the exhaust if he needs to remove it to do the work. Next in
line of priority are the front wheel bearings. I knew those were bad,
especially the right front which makes a lot of noise. The two rear shocks
are leaking badly. I didn't notice this but if I keep the car new struts
were in the plan anyway. The original reason I took the car down there was
to replace the ignition switch but to both our surprise it was the starter
that failed. The symptoms seemed to be the switch.
 His general, overall opinion was that he's seen a lot worse corrosion and
that working on this car is easier then buying a new coat. His words. He
also thinks the rear end is going bad but will last forever anyway and we
replaced the gear oil.
 The body panels on the car are fine and motor and running gear are
basically solid. So as I said his overall impression is it is a fine car and
should last for years. That's the first good news I've heard about this car
and it lends a vote of confidence to my wife. Better still it's great to
have found a nice shop locally to me in Santa Cruz county although he's not
crazy about ideas of dropping 20vt motors into 90q20v models. With all the
things I have going on I simply don't have the time to do all the work on
all my cars so this is great news to me.
Anton