[V8] Cost of Ownership

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I finally got my wife's Audi 100CS Avant to the wrench last week.  All
summer long the car has been making a louder and louder growling sound in
the front end. The noise would diminish significantly if I swerved hard to
the left, although not entirely.  I knew that this was the sound of front
wheel bearings giving up the ghost.  Finally, I got enough time together to
take the car the seventy miles to the shop to get the bearings replaced.
While there, I also got the car through the annual state inspection and the
oil changed.  Total miles on the car:  169,000.
 
It's a small shop in relative terms.  Three mechanics plus John, the owner
and one female who is a bookkeeper that John is teaching his systems for
ordering and estimating.  It's quite a beautiful facility, built new for
John's purpose.  It's like a large barn, with three lifts, four wheel
allignment equipment and all that stuff.  John also has computer diagnostic
equipment for all models, and he has told me that he spends somewhere in the
twenty grand range yearly for computer updating alone.  This is all in rural
Maine.  The shop is also immaculate which is very important to me:  this is
not your average "shade tree" mechanic.
 
Anyway, I have been going to John since just getting the Audi 100 in 2000.
It had 39,000 miles on it since new (1994), and I bought it from the Kansas
City BMW dealer sight unseen, flew out and drove it home.  The dealer had
been an Audi dealer when it was sold and the woman who had bought the car
new had it serviced there from new, so they new the car.  
 
I bought the car for my wife and I bought it with the idea that we would
have it maintained professionally on the basis that it was to be kept in
near new condition mechanically at all times.  Living in Maine if you are a
car is a tough job.  Maine is dedicated as a state to killing cars, from the
cold and continuously variable weather to the noxious stuff the State puts
on the roads in their effort to have ZERO snow and ice ten seconds after the
first snowflake is seen, its tough being a car.  My wife's Audi has the
original exhaust, which is still in excellent condition, the original rubber
gizzies in the rear suspension, although eventually we will need to rebuild
the rear suspension...perhaps around 200,000 miles if we ever get there.
There is a little corrosion beneath the rear fenders, and the fuel tank is
showing some sign of corrosion, but none of that is close to being more than
typical for the age and mileage, and I intend to have it all restored in
this next year.  the surface of the car shows its age, and cosmetically, the
car is ready for light restoration and repainting.  I WANT to repaint it,
but from twenty five feet, the car still looks nearly new.  It has been
garaged almost continuoously throughout the time we have had it.
 
John's maintenence records are all in computer, so in addition to the hard
copies that I keep, he also has a continuous record of every service visit,
what was done, notes regarding potential areas that will need attention at
some point.  While sitting in the office/waiting room while the bearings
were being replaced, John ran a total of all the work orders for the 100CS.
The final verdict is that over the past 130,000 miles Michele's Audi has
cost just about eleven cents per mile for maintenance and service.  That is
all repair work, including such things as struts, brakes and so on, and one
set of wheels and tires.  (I had to replace the Fuchs wheels that were on
the car a year ago, and I bought a set of used A6 wheels off an A6 Avant
with high miles that had been abandonned at John's when the owners found
that the transmission shifter needed to be R&R'd:  they had been given the
car by a family member so they had no real money in that car, but had just
put four new Dunlop Graspix tires on it for the winter before they walked
away.  Thus, last fall I bought four wheels and near zero mile winter tires
for $400.  I am cheap!).
 
Anyway, having the car maintained on a virtually cost no object basis, for
this 100CS has yielded an Audi with 168,000 miles that is our daily driver
now, and which runs, rides and handles as new.  Maintenance cost for 130,000
miles:  11 cents per mile.  Total cost per mile NOT including fuel and tires
aside from the Dunlops that are on it now:  just about 22 cents per mile.
 
I have made no effort to consider excise tax, registration fees, insurance
or gas and oil in the cost figuring.  It is what it is and as long as I
drive one car or another, the cost of fuel is not significant.  What is
significant here to me anyway, is that this Audi is ready for another
100,000 miles of driving, and has been pretty cheap to maintain
professionally to the extent that I have never doubted that when she left,
driving off in a snowstorm, that the Audi would bring my wife back home
safely.
 
Your experience may vary, of course!
 
Roger