Why we drive old Audis

[Mike Arman]

Just got done putting a new(er) motor into dear bride's M*zda 323.

She had 188,000 VERY hard miles on the original, and her idea of automotive
maintenance is to remark that such and such needs to be done - and that's
it! Anyway, the little 1.6 OHC engine soldiered on since 1991, but had
lately gotten *very* tired - starting to burn and leak oil, not much power,
basically, it has had a hard life was just plain worn out.

Found an engine with 75K on it out of a wreck (so we know it was running -
that's how it got wrecked) hit on the side, bought it, had someone install
it - I didn't want to do quite that much work on a car that I simply don't
find very interesting, so I paid someone else to do it.

Got it back ($1,500 later, of which $1,000 was parts, parts, parts, because
LOTS of other things were worn out too), and it runs fine, peppy, smooth,
strong, well worth it, and now she'll keep it until the odometer says
300,000 or so - we anticipate six or seven more years.

Complaint - "It makes a lot of noise - your car doesn't make anywhere near
that much noise, and your car is five years older, it's a 1986."

Answer - "Well sweetheart, my car cost $33,000 back in 1986, your car cost
$7,000 in 1991."

"Oh."

Funny thing is her car isn't really exceptionally noisy considering what it
is: A simple, pretty much non-soundproofed econo-box - and you know what,
my car is *really* quiet - and I love it!

Best Regards,

Mike Arman