[V8] RE: V8 Digest, Vol 26, Issue 14

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 08:37:35 -0700
From: dsaad at icehouse.net
Subject: Re: [V8] Quattro musings....
To: v8 at audifans.com
Message-ID: <1134661055.43a18dbf789a2 at webmail.icehouse.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Seems like there have been a few V8s from listers go by these pages in
recent
days - some basket cases and some only "well worn". They all were going for
cheap - so why not pick up a fixer upper, and bring it up to whatever spec
you
want?

 ***********************************

Yes, I think that is precisely the point.  Almost ANY V8 purchased now will
be a "fixer upper". 

Let's look at what seems to be on the market for the most part:

	1.  VERY few V8's of any age have fewer than 100,000 miles.  There
are some that appear from time to time, but I would be VERY wary of an early
car...a '90 or '91 that had very low miles as in the first three years Audi
had quite a lot of trouble with instrument clusters and many were replaced.
True mileage may be unknown.  At 100,000 miles, there will be a LOT of
little bitty rubber grommets, hoses, connectors and other stuff that will be
really brittle or just plain worn out.  Easy to fix, but time consuming:
figure the rear suspension, for example, and all of those other things that
lie in wait beneath the hood on top of the engine.

	2.  Cars with "stories".  Two cars on eBay recently...both 4.2 litre
cars, one a '92 and one a '93.  One repainted in white and was arguably the
prettiest white V8 that I have ever seen...the rocker panels were painted
white, and it made a tremendous difference.  The car was supposedly blue
when it started, but all panels, and door jambs were painted, too, and if it
was anywhere as good in person as in the pictures, the paint work had to
cost more an five or six grand.  The car didn't bring $4500 at auction.  The
owner told me that he just wanted it refinished so he had it done.  It all
strained the credibility:  spend a fortune on making the car just so and
sell it at what must have been a huge loss?  There MUST be more to the
story....

Then the other one was in the Midwest someplace, and had been owned by a
woman.  The car had relatively low...under 100,000...miles, and was very
very clean, in the pictures.  BUT.  The service records and second set of
keys were missing.  Seems that the woman had had a parting of the ways with
her father and the records were all at his office and he wouldn't let her
have them to sell the car....or something like that.  As I said:  a story.

	3.  There is a dark green '93 for sale in the Pacific northwest.
Around 75,000 miles and the dealership wants ALL the money PLUS.  Carfax
says that it indeed is a one owner.  BUT the car is an auction car, which
means that there are NO service records, and only one key.  Thus the car
will need to be completely and carefully examined, because at 75,000 miles
IF the car had had no timing belt it will need one RIGHT NOW, on the merit
of age alone, if nothing else.  AND while we're in there, all that other
stuff will get done, too...so the bill will be whatever the timing belt
service is worth PLUS all that other stuff...hydraulic pump that is seeping
a tad, etc, etc, etc, because with 75K and twelve years of age, if it isn't
done now, it will need to be done in another year or so, well before the
next t-belt is due.  So that pristine, 75,000 mile V8 isn't worth ALL the
money, but it might be worth ALL the money minus about thirty five hundred
dollars.


I think that the bottom line to the bottom line is to buy the BEST cosmetic
example that you can find and buy it as cheaply as possible, and then plan
to spend the long dollar on the mechanical makeover.  

Also, with the amount of galvanization used in these cars' bodies, rust
won't be an issue, unless the car had been smacked and aftermarket parts
used to repair it, or the repair job was botched.  But a smacked car is to
be avoided at all cost...as I found out the hard way with my '90 3.6 car.

Roger