Imagine ... Audi helping owners of older Audis with part searches

[TM]

Dealers working on old Audis are a double-edged sword, though-
They often lack the knowledge or expertise to really fix the
cars properly, considering the majority of the techs at my local
dealer are too young to have fixed a lot of I-5 Audis. They tend
to do the "replace the part according to a procedure list and see
if the problem goes away" kind of thing. That really pisses me
off- they can't diagnose the problem properly, so they throw a lot
of new parts at the problem. Not my way of doing things.

They also try to sell you everything at full list and the local
dealer is $85 or $90/ hour, not even $75. This results in cars with
relatively minor problems (but maybe several of them) getting
repair estimates of $3000 and up, which causes a lot of cars to go
to the junkyard. My mechanic bought his car for $500 because the PO
got a $9000 estimate at the dealership to fix the car.

The only instances where I see mechanics refusing to work on cars
because
they're too old is when they honestly lack the expertise or parts
suppliers
to fix them- I have seen this with Porsche 356s and old Mercedes-Benzes.
I sure as hell wouldn't have the faintest idea on how to fix a 190SL.
Heck,
I am not even able to start one of those- you have to push and pull
levers
and switches just to start it and get the carb working properly.

Taka