[V8] retirement

[Roger M. Woodbury]

For want of a better term.  2011 will mark major changes here.  We are
selling this house and moving to another building we own in preparation for
building a new home.maybe.  The moving part is guaranteed, the building part
is not:  I am not sure I want to do another house, and the land we own is
not located anywhere near high speed Internet except possibly for DSL and
since the house site will require dragging telephone lines 1800 feet, I am
not sure it is workable.  Anyway.

 

We currently have two elderly Audis and an elderly GMC pickup.  The GMC is a
3.4 ton, do anything/go anywhere truck with fewer than 100,000 miles total.
With reasonable maintenance it will last forever and at 3-5,000 miles per
year, even at eight dollars a gallon for gasoline, it is cheap to own.

 

The Audis are elderly.  My wife's car will pass 165,000 during this year
most likely.  It's needs are few, but I know that sooner or later the
transmission will fail, and the body needs exterior restoration if it is to
last another 10 years, or 100,000 miles.  I know it will last that long
because we have done the work necessary to maintain it properly over the
first 155,000 miles. But a big time repair like a transmission dampens my
enthusiasm.

 

My V8 has fewer than 80,000 miles so is no where near any sort of "time
out".  The real issue with the V8 is total operating cost, and more
severely, availability of parts for a model that has been out of production
for seventeen years.

 

So I have decided to begin the annual spring car replacement process since
it is snowing here, is cloudy and foggy and just a generally yukky winter
morning.

 

The overarching question is, IF gasoline prices spike above $5.00 per
gallon, AND we were to replace both Audi's with newer, more fuel efficient
vehicles, or perhaps VEHICLE (singular), what are some of the options?

 

One likely candidate is another Audi.  In our case it would be a 2000-2005
A6 Avant.  Pretty nice cars although rare with low miles and I question how
well any of them REALLY get maintained nowadays.  The ideal car would be a
one owner from outside of the rust belt, and not more than 50,000 miles.
Very hard to find so my casual search has shown.  AND when you do find them,
they tend to be pricey.

 

I am ruling out anything made in Japan.  I will walk or crawl before I buy
some automobile made in Asia in general, and Japan in particular.  I won't
buy a Volkswagen CC because the transmission is made in Japan.  

 

Then there are cars in the opposite direction.

 

One thought that I have had is to hunt (and it will be a BIG safari taking a
long time, and maybe never finding the white rhino at all) for a 1987
Mercedes 2.5 diesel.  That was arguably the best of the 190 series car as
the 2.5 litre diesel was absolutely bullet proof, got terrific fuel mileage
whether in town or on the road.  Mercedes still provides parts for that
model series, too.  Very rare with less than 200,000 miles.  

 

I wouldn't mind having another 190D-turbo, but there never were a lot of
them, and they are now very rare except for those with 300,000 miles.

 

Then another thought is an '87 Mercedes 300D-turbo.  That was the new body
style with the six cylinder turbo diesel engine.  I actually bought one of
those cars in Florida in the mid '90's.  I absolutely fell in love with the
model after driving one, and there was this particular car at a used car
dealer/body shop* in Naples.  *the body shop was the warning flag and I
totally missed it!.  

 

Anyway, the price was truly right, and the miles were low.  It was almost
too good to be true, and maybe it was.  But I bought the car, cancelled my
return flight and drove up the east coast.

 

The car drove and rode like perfection.  The six cylinder engine had plenty
of power and the power came on smooooooothly, in contrast to my '83 300D
turbo.  I bought the car in Florida to bring back here to Maine to be sold,
so it was a speculation car not something that I intended to keep.  On that
trip from Florida in the middle of the night, the car floated along
Interstate 95, getting around 35 miles per gallon of diesel at any insane or
sane speed I wished to lock in with the cruise.  

 

On the last leg of my drive from Belfast home.45 miles.I encountered a heavy
snow shower just as it was getting dark.  I clicked on the windshield wipers
and found..they didn't work.  It was VERY hard drivnng those miles depending
on the defrost to melt the snow on the windshield, but somehow I made it.
The problem was a fuse I think it was, although I don't even remember now.
When I took it to my car guy to sell, the news was far worse:  the car had
been hit HARD in the left side, with major body reconstruction including the
"B" pillar.  Turns out the car had been totaled, the title lied, and the
former elderly owners had been killed.  The only part of the body work that
was improperly done was the body shop had not installed the sound deadening
material in the driver's door.  Other than that it took an expert body guy
to show where the damage was repaired and where the paint was obviously
reapplied: I might never have found it myself even if I didn't' have stars
in my eyes.

 

So eventually the car got sold for about what I had in it..I think I lost
perhaps a thousand bucks, and I decided that I would not do any more
speculation buying.  But it also says something for the integrity of the
Mercedes 300D shell to take that kind of a hit and be fully repairable.
Take  notes, Japanese cars.

 

Right now there is a very nice looking 300D on eBay with 135,000 miles.  It
will probably not bring $5,000 in this auction. Another one with 30,000 more
miles just sold for less than $4000 in New York.  

 

Of course they are two wheel drive cars, and I am not really interested in
depending on one of those systems year round here in Maine, but they still
make winter tires with studs for all four wheels, too.  And when the weather
is bad enough we don't have to go anywhere.

 

Then there is the question of that six cylinder engine. It was a one year
only motor because Mercedes had major issues with the engine.  It was
non-catalytic equipped, using thermal reactors for emissions.  Mercedes came
up with a fix for the thermal reactor issue and the cracked cylinder heads
that the engine suffered, an as far as I know the fix is warranteed for
lifetime.whose lifetime, I have no idea.

 

And they did make a station wagon variant, but those are really rare and
very expensive..

 

I have read over all of this, and find it interesting that the only
replacements that I can come up with for the "fleet" we have, is either
something a little newer and more expensive with little gain, or something
older from Mercedes that burns diesel fuel and is an imperfect replacement
at best.

 

I guess all the best cars HAVE been built.

 

Roger