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

[Huw Powell]

Well, as Pat said, and now I see the whole story (I missed the OP), it 
is time for a change.

A little background - I am running an '88 90Q with 304k on it.  It's 
running a bit rough right now but still gets from A to B and can still 
be a pleasure to drive.  "My commute" consists of walking through a door 
into a different part of my building, however, and I do have a second 
vehicle ('78 3/4 ton Chevy plow truck).

But if I for some reason was to get a regular day job thing, first I 
would rent a car or borrow George's 2 year old Passat to go to 
interviews and second, when hired, I would buy an appliance.  I see them 
on TV all the time - leases perhaps under $150/month.

I would keep the 90Q for fun, personal errands, and perhaps driving to 
work in heavy snow ;)  Being the only one to make it in on time in a 
blizzard has to be worth something.

Since you are paying retail to maintain the 4kq it might be time to pass 
it along though :(

I don't remember your short list of possible replacements, but even 
saying "get something made this century" misses the mark.  Get something 
made this decade.  A nice off-lease Jetta, perhaps?

- Huw

On 3/3/2014 12:39 AM, Andrew Buc 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.
> _______________________________________________
> quattro mailing list
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro
> http://www.audifans.com/kb/List_information
>