Maintenance, spares, and owners

[Bill Shaw]

The Crusher,  now there's something I didn't consider.  Yep,  I've seen 
entire junkyards disappear over the past 5 or 10 years. 

Huw Powell wrote:
 >I can *pick up and crush* your car, now go whine.

See?  It's all Huw's fault! ;-)

Bill

Tony Hoffman wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Some very interesting oservations. First, I think in general DIY
> maintenance is going away. As a professional, I work at a mostly VW
> shop. We also get in Audis', and the Toyota/Honda/Nissan cars fairly
> regularly. And, on a rare occasion a 3-series or the like.
>
> Anyhow, the DIY is getting slimmer in all car makes, it seems,
> compared to 10 or 20 years ago, and this is sad. It's sad for me as a
> professional, despite it meaning more work for me. Why? Because I
> can't explain what the cam chain tensioner does to someone who can't
> check their oil, and when you give them the bill, they probably feel
> like they are being taken advantage of. If a DIY'er takes it in for a
> major job, they already know it would be a lot of work to replace,
> that's why they brought it to a shop in the first place.
>
> As to the durability of the engines, they are fairly robust. But no
> engine can withstand light use a carbon/sludge issues. We are not only
> seeing this in VAG products, but also anything with a very large
> horsepower/weight ratio that tends to be daily driven (read sedans).
> If you take something with 200hp, and use 25 of it at most in general
> use, just how clean do you think it's going to stay? People don't
> understand this, and think that by babying their car they are
> preserving it. we've cleaned the bottom ends on Toyota and Honda V-6's
> as well as the VAG 1.8T's and V-6's.
>
> As for the used parts availibility, it seems the salvage yard business
> is also a dying breed. This goes along with that dying DIY
> maintenance. It is getting hard to find cars that sit long enough to
> get parts off, with scrap metal constantly going up. It seems a car
> will sit for a couple of weeks, then off to the crusher. That and a
> lot of people live where you can't keep parts cars around. With HOA
> rules (don't even get me started) that tend to limit what one can do,
> the possibility of having a parts car around while stripped is getting
> slimmer.
>
> Anyhow, just my thoughts on things,
> Tony Hoffman
> Oklahoma City
>
> On Feb 3, 2008 10:01 AM, Bill Shaw <b.shaw at comcast.net> 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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