Rant: why do the Audi gods suddenly have it in for me?

[Andrew Buc]

I had posted earlier about recent problems with my 4kq's diminishing  
reliability and with getting parts. As I said at the time, I'd been  
late for work once with a failed alternator. Car problems have made  
me late for work once since, and will make me late for work tomorrow.  
If anyone has any insights on the technical issues, that's fine, but  
right now I need to vent.

I dropped the car off to be aligned after suspension work. I left  
work a bit early in order to catch the alignment shop open the day I  
dropped it off and the day I picked it up. When I picked it up, the  
driver's window was wide open. I realized that I hadn't told the  
alignment shop that the window was being erratic about working. I  
brought this up, and they said they had to open the window to align  
the car. Fair enough, but the fact remains that I had a window stuck  
open. The report from the alignment shop said the RR lower arm and  
toe arm had been very loose.

I dropped the car at the shop next morning and got a rental car. When  
I got in, my supervisor suggested gently that maybe I needed a new  
car. I told her what had happened with the window, and she seemed  
satisfied that it was a fluke and should be easily fixable. When I  
picked up the car at the end of the day, my mechanic said the switch  
was fine, but he'd fixed a broken wire in the LF door. (LR window  
switch is bad, but by the same token, LR window won't open, so NBD.)

When I got the car back after having new suspension bits installed,  
the steering wheel was seriously off kilter--I'd estimate 15 or 20  
degrees counter-clockwise when the car was going straight. The  
alignment put this right, but by Saturday I noticed that the wheel  
was slightly rotated CCL again, not as bad as before. I swung by the  
garage, and the mechanic said he could fix that next time the car was  
in.

I wanted to make up the time I'd missed earlier in the week, so today  
I went in for a few hours, then headed home. When I'd put maybe 35 or  
40 miles on the car for today, I noticed that the steering wheel was  
seriously off kilter again, almost as bad as before the alignment.  
And then the handling started to feel squirrely, to the point that I  
didn't feel safe driving the car. I dropped it at the garage and used  
the key drop. If the RR lower arm and toe arm have in fact come loose  
again, why in the name of Pentosin would that happen?!!!

I made an online reservation for a rental car and will pick it up as  
soon as the office opens tomorrow. So I won't be as late as I have  
been in the past. But I'll be observing my 3-month anniversary with  
the company in about a week, and I'll have been late 3 times because  
of car trouble. On the alternator failure, I think I scored some  
points for getting a rental car and not writing off the entire day. I  
hope my supervisor cuts me some slack because the reflection is on  
the recent work and not on the car's inherent reliability. They show  
every sign of liking my work, but I'd feel better about this if I'd  
had, say, a year of good attendance with the company before this  
started.

Showing up on time virtually every day is a big part of my brand as  
an employee. In past performance reviews, I've sometimes gotten  
"exceeds expectations" on attendance. Presumably I'll find out  
tomorrow what's going on with the car. Right now I want to scream.