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

[Mike Fitton]

Yeah, I know what you mean and how you feel.  I do know that, at 24, I 
qualify as "younger folk" on this list.  I'm interested in 17" wheels 
for my car, but only because they'll clear 13" brakes.  I'm only 
interested in 13" brakes because they won't cower in the corner like a 
bunny rabbit when faced with 350bhp like my already upgraded, yet still 
pathetic brakes will.  Let the Ferrari guys get all elitist when someone 
mentions cutting a coil off the springs on his F355.  At the price I 
paid for my car, other peoples opinion about what is or isn't 
appropriate doesn't have much weight with me.  Strange how it works that 
way...maybe my purchasing price not being impressive doesn't warrant 
having to continue to impress anyone?  I'll think about that later.  The 
Audi Quattro has been my favorite car since I was like 4 or 5, and 
owning my second urQ is living my childhood dream, even if that 
ownership has more adult-centric problems than I anticipated at that 
age.  My car's a basketcase that hasn't turned over or even come off 
jackstands for almost a year now.  And it doesn't bother me in the 
least.  I just love looking at it and working on it, knowing that 
someday it will be back on the road, better than ever.

To be completely honest, I never understood the desire to keep a car 
original.  Not to sound like a snob, but I think the list of cars that 
are perfect on the showroom is in the single digits.  Cars like the 911 
GT3, the Carrera GT, the NSX-R, and some versions of the Elise come to 
mind.  As it happens, the price for most of those cars is in the six 
digits.  A case can certainly be made for the Quattro's historic value, 
but that's a totally subjective value based only on our love.  The NADA 
doesn't reflect that.  How much would someone pay for a truly flawless, 
showroom-condition US-spec Quattro with, say, 60k miles?  I doubt it'd 
go for over $15k.  In the last few years, I've seen a few extremely nice 
cars go for less than that.  Maybe if we had received some of the 
RR-engined ones.  Those were much more modern and high-tech examples 
than our WX-engined ones.  Not often do you see so much advancement 
within an almost identical body.

Put yourself in Audi's shoes.  Don't think for a second that they've 
forgotten the car that got them where they are.  The fact that they keep 
bringing it up in ad campaigns (so I gather...I don't own a television) 
is proof that they haven't forgotten.  However, they made less than 
11,000 worldwide, under 1,000 of which came to the US.  How many of 
those original numbers are totaled and rotting away in some hidden 
corner of some hidden junkyard?  I'd bet a substantial percentage.  So 
the US urQ owners, which number around maybe 500, are not of 
extraordinary importance to them financially, in and of themselves.  As 
others have noted, we're still out there buying new Audis.  We're not 
concerned about the 8 failure prone nonservicable control arms are on 
the front of the B5 S4 or how long Audi will keep those parts in 
production.  We know it's a capital car and we buy them because of 
that.  If we wanted cars that would be supported forever, we'd all be 
Mopar guys <shudders>.  I didn't know what I was getting into when I 
bought my first urQ, but I knew full well when I bought the second one.  
I bought it anyway.  It may have been a financial mistake, particularly 
at that point in my life, but I didn't starve or anything, and it 
certainly wasn't Audi's fault if I did.  I knew when I bought it that 
I'd be on my own for a lot of items on the spreadsheet, both general 
maintenance as well as upgrades.  I know Audi's not concerned about the 
cost or progress of my restoration.  That's fine with me...I'm not doing 
it for them.  I'm doing it for me.  And if I'm going to spend this 
enormous amount of time and money, I want to see STIs in my rear view 
mirror.  I chose an urQ as the platform for such a project because, to 
me, it's the coolest car to start with that's within my five times my 
budget.  There's no car under $40k that I'd rather drive fast or be seen 
driving fast.

In short, I have high expectations for my car.  Those expectations 
cannot be met with stock parts.  The car just wasn't good enough when it 
was new.  It was good for 1983, but this isn't 1983 anymore.  There was 
no yardstick for our car back then.  There is now.  There are two 
decades of automotive advancement to consider.  I plan on building a car 
that I'll own for the rest of my life, or until the powers that be turn 
off the spigot, whichever comes first.  30-year-old KKK turbos just 
don't have a place in that plan.

As far as motivating Audi to produce parts, I think these petitions will 
fall on deaf German ears.  I don't mean to be pessimistic, and I'll be 
happy to sign my name on said petitions, but I just don't think our 
numbers are strong enough to really get Audi's attention.  I'd love to 
see Audi make more mission-critical parts...it simplifies some of my 
plans.  But being left helpless with no contingency plan just seems 
silly to me.  I love this car too much to see it just sent off to the 
knacker like that horse in that book.  If I can prevent that by adding 
my voice to the mob, great.  If that fails, and I can prevent that by 
fabbing up some compatible ball joints, then that's what I'll do.  Of 
course, we could all get a better price on ball joints if we ordered 400 
at a time from Truchoice...  From where I sit, I'm just happy that our 
cars are close enough to parts bin cars to update to new subsystems.  
Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but B3 subframes and suspensions are a 
bolt-on from what I can tell, except maybe the front subframe with 
respect to transmission placement.  Certainly more expensive and 
labor-intensive than just replacing the ball joint, but replacement ball 
joints for B3 are still in production...for the moment anyway.  And if 
you play your cards right, you can get some forged aluminum arms out of 
the deal instead of the horrible stamped steel arms most of us have 
now.  With or without Audi's current parts policy, we have not been left 
optionless.

The Chinese use two pictograms together to closely approximate the 
English "crisis."  The two always go together.  The first symbol means 
something like "bad stuff happening soon."  The second symbol means 
"opportunity."  Where I think a lot of people see NLA blue strut mounts, 
I see spherical bearings that I don't even have to make myself.  I just 
pay the $600 for indestructable replacements and enjoy the upgrade from 
butterknife to scalpel that they'll give me.  I won't deny that the era 
of comfortable urQs with rubber bushings everywhere may be nearing an 
end.  I hate to put it this way, but if one's looking for a relatively 
inexpensive, comfortable Audi, I highly recommend C4 S-cars.  I'm 
totally hooked on mine and it's serving the purpose of daily driver 
extremely well.  Part of me would very much like a nice clean urQ to 
tool around in, and I strongly considered one before I bought the S6.  
But when I look at that engine bay, and compare it to memories of a sea 
of brake lines that Audi thought would make a really great fuel 
injection system, I cringe a little and congratulate myself on my return 
to the world of EFI.  Stock Quattros at 20 years old are just too 
tempermental to expect reliable transportation from day in and day out.  
If you don't put the pressure on the car to be something it's not, it in 
turn won't put pressure on you to keep it that way.  I'll never expect 
this 2-ton battleship to be a sportscar.  Sure it's fast, and the 
suspension and brakes can go a long way toward control, but two tons 
will always be two tons.  It will never have the second derivative 
prowess of a B-chassis car.  With that in mind, why not get rid of as 
much butterknife in the Quattro as we (the royal we?) possibly can?  And 
maybe it's a function of my youthfulness, but I think I'd be perfectly 
happy driving a razor-sharp Quattro around all the time, since that and 
reliability will go hand in hand for me.

God I'm long-winded tonight...  Okay, I'll shut up and go to bed.

-Cheers!
Mike

Michael Hopton wrote:
> 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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