Too Many Audis, Need Advice To Thin The Herd--Not a FS Post (Yet) and Long

[Michael Veglia]

Really I don't want to let any of them go, but sadly I think we must thin the herd. We are having a property dispute with our front neighbors who we share a lot with and the result is we are now juggling too many cars on the street.

A good friend just gave us his 2001 allroad with 153k (time will tell if this was a gift or a curse, but the timing was excellent since our ever reliable '95 A6 q avant just lost a water pump three weeks back and is under the knife). This brings to number of Audis in our house to five for a total of six vehicles (we have a '95 Toyota T100 pickup in addition to the small fleet of Audis). In addition our two young adult boys who still live at home each have Volvo 240 sedans. A lot of cars (and guess who maintains all of them).

Three cars are off limits in this exercise, the T100 truck, my garage queen '83 Ur-Q, and the allroad (just because it was a generous gift and we hope to enjoy it a while). When we decide what to do any FS posts will go to Marketplace (etc.).

What I am seeking at this point is advice on what to keep, what to let go, and how much I might ask. Location is Santa Cruz, CA. Descriptions as follows:

1986 4000 quattro, around 160k miles (actual--odo still works), interior fair, paint (Zermatt Silver) looks okay from the sides, bad on roof, hood, and trunk lid. Previous owner had new clutch, H&R springs, and Bilsteins done right before we bought the car (around 140k miles), new windshield, stock size Bridgestones worn about 50%, TB job (w/all pulleys and water pump) done around 145k. A couple of rust spots the size of quarters but not too bad. We have owned this car longer than anything we currently have. My wife is really attached to it. I am too actually (it is my 4th 4kq and my first Audi was a new '87 4kq 23 years ago).

1992 80 quattro, around 160k miles, interior nice (quattro script interior), paint (Alpine White) nice for age with small dings and blemishes but overall pretty nice exterior, 14" BBS wheels (needs tires), TB job, new radiator, new rear brakes, new rear struts all recently done. Trans makes noise, not too bad and has not changed since we bought it ~10k miles ago. I'm really attached to this car because it is a clean example of the last of the NA I5 quattros. It is less fun to drive than the 4kq, but much nicer on road trips. I lean towards keeping this one over the 4kq.

1995 A6 quattro avant, aka "the mommiewagon," around 212k miles, was repainted prior to our purchase and the pearl white paint looks very nice, interior (black leather) not so good (tears in front seats), semi-recent Boge turbo gas struts on all four corners, fairly fresh Bridgestone G019s on 16" fat fives, 10 disc changer and stock Bose system. Water pump died three weeks ago, lost coolant but never showed overheat on coolant or oil temp gauges, and thankfully did not skip any teeth on the timing belt (I verifies this with the cam lock tool). Doing TB/water pump job this weekend, fingers crossed and hoping no overheat damage. Trans noisy and clunks into 4th (the clunk into 4th has been there since we bought the car at 112k). We both love this car and it has been our primary family car and road tripper for 8 years and 100k miles. Major emotional attachment.

I realize none of these are worth much. I would much rather keep them, but under the circumstances we really can't keep them all :(

Any advice and/or condolences will be greatly appreciated. TIA

Mike Veglia