Maintenance, spares, and owners

[Grant Lenahan]

Are porsches more emotional cars, owned by enthusiasts, compared to  
run of the mill, 6-cylinder Audi sedans?

Uh, yea.  Is this a surprise?

I'm very surprised your motor itself is worn out. I've had several go  
200-300k and STILL be fine (everything else gave up around them).   
How do you know, have you torn it down?

Maybe they just beat it - no oil changes, run hard when cold. That'll  
do in thebest of motors.

Grant
On Feb 3, 2008, at 11:01 AM, Bill Shaw wrote:

> I've had ample time in the past month or so to ponder the current  
> state
> of contemporary Audi parts availability, maintenance requirements,   
> and
> owner demographics,  and I've come up with a few observations.  I'd be
> interested in hearing what others have to say on the subject who have
> more than my limited exposure to the marque.  I'm specifically talking
> about the the one I have,  the A6QA 30V,  and it's close relatives.  I
> can't help but draw comparisons to the Porsche world,  even though my
> experience there is mostly with the older models. Please don't take  
> any
> of this as a slur against Audi or Audi owners,  I'm just looking for
> some insight and trying to provoke some discussion on the subject.
>
> First,  parts:
> I would expect with the vast numbers of these cars produced that there
> would be a huge pool of used parts to pick & choose from when needed,
> but that is not at all what I've found.  The pickings have been  
> slim and
> the offerings of poor quality.  If I asked on Rennlist for pistons for
> my 928 I'd come up with 1/2 dozen offerings.  When I needed pistons  
> for
> an early 4.5L Euro engine I even found a brand new set at a very
> reasonable price.  Not so here in the Audi world.  I did have one very
> generous offer (thank you Craig) but not the outflowing of support  
> I've
> experienced on the p-car list. That leads me into owners &  
> maintenance.
>
> I think (again just mho) there is not the same level of DIY here as in
> the p-car world.  At least not with the newer cars, there seems to  
> be a
> lot more diy in the older Audis.  Note that even though this A6QA is
> almost 10 years old I'm still calling it 'newer'.   Is this due to the
> type of people that buy Audis vs p-cars?  Is it due to the overly
> complex maintenance retirements?  Maybe it's partly due to a
> self-feeding thing where fewer people are doing the heavy mechanical
> work so there's less technical support when needed, so fewer people  
> dare
> to take on the maintenance?  It seems that a much higher percentage of
> the Audi population takes their cars to a mechanic to change a
> thermostat than actually does the work themselves,  which again feeds
> into the general lack of availability of used parts (talking trends
> here,  not just t-stats).  The spares & service seems for the most  
> part
> to be staying in the dealer/professional network and little is  
> trickling
> down to the diy world.  Or am I completely wrong here?
>
> One other observation & theory I'd like to present is the current  
> state
> of my a6qa engine.  At 130k miles it is pretty much used up,  pistons
> beat, cylinders scored,  bearings shot.  I'm told that these  
> engines are
> pretty much bullet proof,  which I would expect after seeing the stout
> manner that the main bearings are fixed in the block.  But there's
> mine,  dead at 130k.  My theory is that this car spent the vast  
> majority
> of its life idling,  never really getting revved,   and that has  
> lead to
> its coking & carboning,  which directly contributed to it's early
> demise.  It was owned by a family of 4,  the mama driving the babies
> around never pushed it,  the dad commuting 50 miles on the highway  
> each
> way to work doing 65 mph not revving past 2k for an hour each way  
> every
> day.  This is another one that until I got it was dealer maintained  
> with
> synthetic oil.   Could this long term gentle use have killed the  
> engine
> well before it's time?  Any other theories?
>
> I'm looking forward to your comments,
>
> Bill
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