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

[Fred Munro]

Hi Taka;

Our local Audi dealer tech drives a '86 5ktq. His wife drives my old '91
200q. He knows these cars inside-out. Ironic, really - there's not that many
of them around here to service.
It's a mixed bag for service on these old cars, all right - they're not
teaching this stuff at "Audi school" any more and as we all know, even
though the cars are old, they are not simple mechanisms.


Fred Munro
'94 S4 (the only one in town)



----- Original Message -----
From: "TM" <t44tq at mindspring.com>
To: <duane at zk3.dec.com>; "'Quattro List'" <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 5:02 PM
Subject: RE: Imagine ... Audi helping owners of older Audis with part
searches


> 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
>
>