[s-cars] General bitching

[Igor Kessel]

Folks,
I haven't paid much attention to the wife's unchipped commuter '98 A4
over my 4 years of ownership outside of the regular oil changes (the car
being reliable to a level of an Accord or a Camry and all), for which I
am paying dearly right now. Well, you know the story. Anyway, what I am
saying is that I know relatively little about the A4 in general and the
1.8T in particular. Several orders of magnitude less than about the
5-cyl Audis.

Over the last month as I had the engine apart for the head rebuild I
have made several attempts to fish some TECHNICAL info off the audiworld
archives. Sure that site has a great layout, a pretty appearance and
all, but maaaan, does it lack technical content!

The last straw was my today's search with the following string: "a4
+coolant +flush" which resulted in 20 articles and NOT ONE OF THEM told
me HOW to flush, i.e. where to connect the hoses and all. A typical hit
would sound like "mmm well I talked to my mechanic and he recommended a
coolant flush for which the dealer quoted $800". What a bunch of
technically ignorant kids big on ground effects, wings and polished
exhaust tips.

Thank Heavens there is our beloved audifans with the technical lists out
here. Just venting out loud.

BTW, the Bentley for the A4 doesn't show the procedure either. And no, I
won't flush the sys according to my general thoughts on this matter.
Four Audis ago I had flushed the sys just the way I had been always
doing it for many years with other cars and it cost me a new water pump
and assorted bits and pieces. Yes, I had blown it up by the reversed
water flow.

OK, off to starting the newly rebuilt 1.8T engine for the first time in
over a month. Wish me luck folks.

--
Igor Kessel
pissed in Pennsylvania