[V8] Me the Audi Mech: what a varied life!

[Roger Woodbury]

Well, thanks everyone!  I have a lot of good comments about tires that will
need to be sourced for the 100CS, and after looking carefully, it will be
sooner rather than later.  I am not looking forward to this, simple as it
may be, because right now isn't a great time to spend ANY money at all, but
I want these tires to rectify the Fuzion errors of my old ways, so I am
going to work very hard on overtime to make a real choice.

In the past whenever I bought tires it was always relatively simple.
Through two Type 44 Quattro Avants I used Firestone LH Touring Radials,
which were arguably the best all around tire I have ever had.  What made
them a killer in comparison to anything else was the price, which was about
ten bux a tire less than anything else, and about half the price of
Michelins.  We had a Firestone store about four miles away at that time and
a knowledgeable store manager whom I liked and trusted with the mounting and
balancing, AND to whom I took my truck, too.  The relationship ended when
the Firestone store closed, and Bridgestone absorbed Firestone.  Not sure
that the two events were related.

The best tire deal that I have had in recent history was the Michelin MXV4s
that I bought from Tire Rack for the V8.  $50 each.  Can't quite duplicate
that now, although if I could for the 100CS I would in a heart beat.

So right now, it appears that Generals may be the next tires for the car.
Sometime in the next two months the ax will have to fall and the car will
need new tires. 

As expected there was a certain amount of morphing of the subject into
winter versus summer tires, and it was mentioned that I have written about
this and have always used all season tires on my cars.  This is true and for
several reasons.  As a general statement I think that the weather here
presents the worst driving environment of any industrial area in the world.
It is an awful lot like that one very exotic woman that we have all had once
in our lives.  You know the one?  The exotic beauty of the sexiest Porsche
coupled with the complexity and total disregard for practicality and
dependability of the most exotic Ferrari.  

Right on the coast here, we get rain, sleet, freezing rain and snow in
various combinations two and one half seasons a year.  That's normal. But in
the depth of winter we can get the same varied weather, sometimes highly
modified by the Gulf of Maine, but twenty five miles away, as one drives
toward Bangor, in one one half mile stretch, it is possible to leave the
moderate and descend into Artic winter with high snow and wind.  All season
tires work well, with none of the compromises of winter tires.  When I was
driving many, many miles for a living, I used studded tires on all four
wheels (BMW and Mercedes), and all season tires are a great compromise.  I
had all season V rated tires on the 928s, as those cars went out in the
winter some, too.  

Oh, to put a point to it:  While it might seem a cool combination of sexy
Porsche and high tension Ferrari, believe me:  it is a combination that like
that exotic, high test woman, goes from zero to bitch in about three seconds
with absolutely NO WARNING.  

Roger