[urq] (my thoughts on) Motivating Audi to produce Parts

Wed Jun 28 22:42:24 EDT 2006

And that is the problem... I do enjoy using my Ur-q as a daily driver...
can't imagine driving anything else other than a typ 85... I am stuck!

However.. owning an early 911 that was all original right down to paint has
taught me few things.  One of them was respect for original cars.  And maybe
like Mike I am getting older, but I like to see cars that are completely
stock and original.  Something that will be impossible to see in the near
future unless we stop driving them or Audi decides to support their
classics.

Cheers
Martin Pajak

http://www.quattro.ca

1982 Audi Ur-quattro (50,000 mi) new project
1983 Audi Ur-quattro (85,000 mi) Concourse d'Elegance
1985 Audi Ur-quattro (214,000 km) Euro spec. import mit 3B :)
1987 Audi 4000s quattro (212,000 km) wintervagen mit 7A :)

-----Original Message-----
From: urq-bounces at audifans.com [mailto:urq-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf
Of Michael Hopton
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 9:59 PM
To: Mike Fitton; urq at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [urq] (my thoughts on) Motivating Audi to produce Parts

Mike,

I completely understand your point of view and there are many other cars
from other manufacturers that I would like to own (but I don't).

Manufacturing "better" parts for ur-qs is an obvious solution and ironically
most of my cars are already modified. That's not what I am getting at.
I guess I am just getting old, but now I would like to be able to drive and
enjoy
a car as it was produced by the manufacturer.

But, you know what has always really pissed me off was an article
written in Audi World that condemned all the ur-qs that were being driven
around by "younger" folk who had modified their cars with bigger wheels,
body kits and non-stock paint colours. The article was written by Elaine 
Catton. And you know what I thought, at least these cars weren't being
scrapped, at least they were being enjoyed it's not like the manufacturer
offered any kind of support. Imagine younger folk enjoying Audi history,
perish the thought.

The fitrst time I priced an ur-q Audi catalytic converter, some 15 years 
ago as $1800! I kid you not.I should have read the writing on the wall.
Piech was wrong they should have been given 9 litre tanks, obviously
they want them to be the first off the road!

I think Audi continue to make great innovative products, so do many other
manufacturers. I just don't think they care a sh*t about how they got to
where they are, unless it has some marketing value.

And you know we will probably start making a whole range of
replacement parts for the cars. Audi clearly don't care about asking their
suppliers to do so. Oh wait, sorry after pressure they do; it's just the
parts 
don't fit, hmmm shows how much they care?

God forbid anyone should actually want to drive one as a daily driver.

FYTA, Mike

________________________________

From: urq-bounces at audifans.com on behalf of Mike Fitton
Sent: Wed 6/28/2006 4:18 PM
To: urq at audifans.com
Subject: [urq] (my thoughts on) Motivating Audi to produce Parts

I'm going to attempt a post here.  I was one of the guys having trouble
posting, so we'll see...

I'll start by saying that I'm in the middle of a ground-up restoration. 
I'll also say up front that I am not an Audi purist.  I'm on my 4th Audi
and 6th VWAG product, and I feel a strong sense of brand loyalty right
now.  I think modern Audis are among the best cars on the planet.  That
said, there are some other heavy hitters in the automotive world whose
engineering I have a great deal of respect for.  Honda, Mazda, Volvo,
and Subaru are on the list.  Even though I like modern (say, early 90s
and up) Audis, I think they have a lot of technical shortcomings.  It's
not that Audi couldn't build the car I want; they just choose not to. 
They're more interested in a luxury segment than a sportscar segment. 
That's for the board to decide...I'm just a poor civil servant on a
computer.

Back to my Quattro restoration.  I want the blue strut tops only
slightly more than I want the green ones.  What I really want is a
spherical bearing at the top of each corner.  I don't want a center
support bearing.  Instead, I want a carbon fiber driveshaft that can
take real abuse.  I don't want stock swaybar bushings.  I want enormous
custom swaybars with appropriate polyurethane bushings and hemi-joint
endlinks.  I don't want original ball joints.  I want custom chromoly
control arms that accept a generic, maybe Truchoice, ball joint.  I
don't want stock front fenders.  I want fiberglass A2 replicas, which
are available.

I could go on.  Basically, I want my car to be the best it can be. 
Mechanical fuel injection, counterflow heads, and oil-cooled K26s fall
pretty short of "best."  I recently picked up an urS6.  I knew Audis had
improved in that 12 year difference between my two, but I was astonished
to see just how much.  It's staggering how far Audi came between 1983
and 1995.  I suspect I'd feel the same way if I owned a B7 RS4...too
poor right now, but someday.  My point is, I'm not interested in
replacing what are by modern measurements crappy broken parts with brand
new crappy parts.  Let's say Audi makes a run of ball joints for us. 
Then what?  We'll be having this discussion all over again in another
100k miles.  We can't realistically expect Audi to support our cars
indefinitely.  We may only feel justified because VWAG has deep
pockets.  What if we were all Countach/Esprit/whatever-superesoteric-car
owners?  Then we wouldn't even have that justification.

So I say to hell with Audi.  Their parts supply doesn't have anything to
do with the fact that I think new Audis are cool.  But it does mean I'm
on my own for this restoration, but I really can't say I'd have it any
other way.  A showroom condition Quattro doesn't hold a candle to, say,
a new STI.  For some of you, that's not the point of owning one.  For
me, it's exactly the point.  I believe the Quattro was so well-designed
that it can stand up to any of the modern Japanese hardware with only a
few relatively minor changes.  Those changes just don't include many
stock parts.  Think about it...our cars are 20 years old.  In 2025,
where is today's brand new STI going to be?  I think it'll be forgotten,
with a small cult following that's as devoted as they are deluded. 
Point of reference: modern day DSM heads.  Sure, there's lots of support
and aftermarket for old DSMs, but how much longer is that going to
last?  Mitsubishi's not doing so well in North America, and I wouldn't
be surprised to see them pull out completely in the next few years.  And
then all those DSM heads will be wetting their pants in parts supply
frustration.  And for what?  A car that totally sucks.  At least our
cars are awesome already.  We have at least that much on our side.  Our
cars will never be forgotten.

Look what that guy Hap did in the C4 world.  All he did was make a big
honkin rear swaybar, and now he's almost a household name among those
that care.  Same goes for Javad Shadzi.  All he did was make a tubular
header and a fuel-only ECU that didn't shit the bed when faced with an
odd number of cylinders.  He then built an entire business around that
initial product, and appears to be doing very well.  If you live in
North America, and you wanna get nutty on a 5cyl Audi engine,
particularly a 10v version, "Pay to the Order of: 034MS" is the first
big check you write.

So let's get dirty and start fabricating/commisioning our own parts to
our own specs.
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Have an urq answer? ... Please help others by adding to the KB ... all
contributions welcome!