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

[Steve Mills]

No offense, but the first thing I'd do is find a different shop. There's no excuse for leaving you hanging on the window, or worse screwing up work on the suspension to the extent that the car is undrivable. 

Also, while a 4KQ is relatively simple and overall well built platform, it's also a ~30 year old car- I'm not sure any of us would recommend it as your only driver. 

My point is that the problems you describe are from parts that are wearing out from normal use, (although some would argue the window regulators aren't the best design), not because they were crap to begin with. You can only expect so many miles or hours out of a bearing or bushing, etc.  As one of my engineering professors liked to say, 'Every time something moves, it's trying to fail. Your job is to postpone the inevitable.'

So, if you really need a very reliable daily driver, I'd suggest that little short of a completely rebuilt 4k is likely to offer that, and it's pretty clear that's not what you have. I'd buy something new and either sell the 4k or keep it for weekends- at this point it shouldn't be your primary car. 

Steve



> On Mar 3, 2014, at 12:39 AM, Andrew Buc <abuc at andrewbuc.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.
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