Checklist for Reliability of Older Audis

[Huw Powell]

On 8/15/2011 11:10 PM, Cody Forbes wrote:
> Electronic parts tend to fail suddenly. At one moment the trace on
> the PCB or the resistor or whatever is good, the next minute it burns
> out and it stops working.

yup

> I'd bet the majority of us have more than one of whatever
> model we like (How many 80/90's does Huw have now?)

2 or 3 in boxes and a couple on wheels... thanks for the shout out, but 
you make your point well with this.  The grey car's headlight switch has 
gone bad (I barely noticed).  Do I go to the black car to replace it or 
the box of switches?  The point is it is only my labor, and the parts 
end up being free, really.

> If you want to be covered...

Get AAA+.


> For long trips I either take my A8q  which has less years and less miles

I'd drive my Audi, but an argument could be made for using the '78 
K20... no electronics to speak of other than the ignition, and parts are 
cheap and available everywhere.

> In the end, just do the usual maintenance and don't sweat it when
> something unexpected fails. 80% of the time there's zero possibility
> of diagnosing something that isn't broken yet. It is an old car and
> things will fail, but it really does tend to be fairly few and far
> between. The very very best thing to do is learn about the car and
> how to work on it so you can figure these things out on your own.
> Then next time you might figure out what's broke and walk/hitch a
> ride to a parts store and fix the thing right then and there.

Well put.  I have about 3 of those ignition power stages that the 
subject car might need.  I could try the repair for free, instead of for 
$140.

By the way, one thing John at Carworks does is keep crappy old 
electronic parts that still sort of work to use as tests during 
diagnosis.  There's also the "borrow a part from another customer's car 
to see if it fixes it" method.  Highly amusing.

- Huw