[V8] Speaking of options...

[sdewitt at stx.rr.com]

>From the research I've done ont he ETKA and german car sites, Audi seems to have dropped the 6 speed from V8 applications in 2002 this includes the S8, S6 and A6 4.2. 

I typically used my V8 seat heaters 4 times a year in south texas.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jeremy Ward <jward at mti-interactive.com>
Date: Friday, March 18, 2005 11:05 am
Subject: [V8] Speaking of options...

> I had a conversation with a friend at the local Audi dealership on 
> thisvery topic. (He has been with the company during the best and 
> the worst
> years...)
> 
> I asked him why cars on the www.audi.de website are so configurable,
> whereas the US site (www.audi.com) was so much more limited.  Over 
> thereyou can put any motor in any car, with any transmission, in 
> any color,
> and any level of comfort features.  And here?  Not so much...
> 
> He said that with the motors specifically, they have to spend millions
> of dollars on EPA tests per each model / motor combination.  This 
> is why
> generally they offer 2 different motors per model, and only 1 in the
> cars that don't have as high of volume on (e.g. A8).  Remember 
> when they
> offered a 3.7l fwd V8 in the D2 A8?  How many of those puppies did 
> theysell?  I'll bet not enough to pay for the EPA tests for *that*
> particular combination!
> 
> Transmissions...  Why didn't they offer the 6spd in the S8 in the US?
> (I saw one in Neckarsulm, btw)  They would have to stock yet another
> transmission + transmission components in all of their US parts
> warehouses, develop training material in English, and get all of 
> the US
> techs trained up on a combination that they might see once in their
> careers...
> 
> As for the interiors, each color of each fabric type must be 
> tested for
> flammability, smoke, etc.  And again, much more parts to stock in the
> warehouses.
> 
> And then there's logistics...  If you lived in Germany and wanted 
> to buy
> an Audi, you would probably know what you were looking for and 
> order it
> on the website; check any box you want!  A month later, you would
> probably hop on the ICE train and head down to Ingolstadt to pick 
> it up
> (how cool would that be?!?)
> 
> Here, they have to order the cars, wait 3 months to have them 
> built and
> shipped over through the Panama Canal into San Diego where they 
> are then
> sent up our direction.  That's about how long Eliot's Golf took, 
> right?How impatient was he to finally get his cool new toy that he 
> had put
> money down on?
> 
> This is why they tend to place their orders based on averages.  I 
> thinkhe said that 40% of Audis sold are silver.  Add to this the 
> differentcolor interiors, engine choices, and transmission 
> types...  You can't
> please everyone, so aim to please the masses and you will make the
> majority of people happy.  He told me that in the NW everyone orders
> their Audis with Quattro and Xenon, so although these are options, the
> majority of their lot cars have them.
> 
> Compare this to the V8 when it came out in 1990; the only choices you
> had were exterior color, interior color, and whether or not you wanted
> sport seats.  They only sold 3,868 of them between model years
> 1990-1994, with the vast majority in 1990.  I don't think my 
> friends in
> AZ or TX have ever used their front and rear seat heaters, but 
> they have
> them just in case!  Much easier for Audi to send over this low-number
> car with a standard set of options (which was fairly well loaded, btw)
> than to get crazy on what a very small selection of an already very
> small market segment might want...  It got so bad that in 1994 
> when Audi
> sold only 77 V8 units (thank you recession and 60 Minutes!), they only
> brought over 4 colors (Pearl, Black, Dark Green, Dark Grey).
> 
> I would love a door S3, but how many people in the US would buy 
> one when
> you can get a similar (kind of) Golf for a bit less money?  
> Probably not
> enough sales to pay for the EPA tests, eh?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> - Jeremy
> http://198.107.18.114/v8q/ 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AUDI-NW-owner at u.washington.edu
> [AUDI-NW-owner at u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of eliot
> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 4:42 PM
> To: northwest audi enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: new yedda is here
> 
> 
> well if they sell enough of the fluffy model that would
> pave the way for hotter models right?  i don't think they
> even have the hot models on sale in europe yet...
> 
> RS4 is coming.. autoweek says $70K.. madness. well i take
> that back given the way the euro to dollar exchange rate
> is going.. they lost $1b last year due in large part to
> exchange rate woes.
> 
> but a bare bones high end car for a low price will never
> happen because options always cost less to produce than
> to sell.. i.e. the profit margin on a fully loaded car is
> always much higher than the profit margin on a bare bones car.
> and if you sell a stripped down $30K audi a joe blow idiot would
> be screaming about how a kia or hyundai has feature xyz while
> costing half of the audi.  the extra crap is there to cushion
> the shock of paying for an expensive piece of engineering since
> consumers mostly think that the significant bits i.e. body, chassis,
> engines are all more or less equivalent and price differences are
> due mostly to leather seats and sat-nav garbage.
> 
> the price of options is more realistically reflected when you
> are buying used...
> 
> 
> eliot
> 
> Scott Stiles wrote:
> > It's not really the A3 styling that I don't like, it's a combination
> of:
> > - they felt that they needed to inflate the A3 to sell it here
> > (sportback)
> > - option set, at least initially, seems very comfort and style
> oriented
> > (dare I say they're trying to appeal to the fairer gender?), rather
> than
> > performance:
> > 	- full length glass sunroof
> > 	- no Quattro
> > 
> > I'd love to see a sportier option package on the A3 that 
> consists of
> the
> > 2.0t, a 6spd (or DSG), Quattro, and sports suspension. Ideally this
> > option package would be available without a bunch of other crap. 
> This> would result in a very attractive package, IMO. Otherwise, 
> I'd love to
> > see a 5door mk5 GTI, but I hear they aren't bringing that over 
> either:(
> > 
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