[V8] nasty question....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I have a nasty problem. No, no, no!  Not with my V8.  Have I told you lately how wonderful my V8 is running?  How much I love my V8, what a wonderful example of prime German engineering the car is?  (Audi Gods?  I hope you are reading this this morning!)

Nope. My nasty problem is with my other Premier example of Audi engineering, the 1994 Audi 100 CS Avant. The car now has passed 173,000 miles and runs magnificently.  Mechanically the car is working very, very well.  The problem is with the body.  It is suffering from some “typical” issues, the most obvious of which is the trim piece on the lower part of the driver’s door just fell off.  I was about to open the door and get into the car, and it just went “splat” and fell onto the ground.  I was expecting it, but it did seem a bit cheeky for it to just fall off when I was standing there.

But that is not the major issue. The major issue is with the rear doors.  

A year or so ago we experienced a failure in the vacuum system that locks the doors. The issue was that all doors would lock except for the passenger door.  I initially suspected the vacuum motor, but I can hear it working and since all doors would lock except for the right front passenger door, I figured there was a leak at the lock at that door.  It has made no real difference since we seldom lock the car at all anyway, and it rarely goes more than fifty miles which takes in the grocery store and Sam’s Club and all those, so leaving it unlocked is fine for now.

But the worst problem just developed is the left rear door will not unlock at all, and therefore, the left rear door is shut tight....making it a 2 door car on that side.  The right rear door lock is a bit sticky but can be made to open.  I need to figure out how to open the left rear door without destroying the door panel, and although I haven’t actually been inside to look, I was wondering what tribal knowledge there was about opening rear doors that wouldn’t?

I once bought a very nice VW Golf that had rear doors that were dead because of the typical VW Terminal Rusted Shut Door Latch and Broken Handle Syndrome, and had a hell of a time getting those doors open so I could replace the latches, and I hope that I am not facing the same issue here.

Now, for a shameless commercial advertisement:  Sometime early in October I will be publishing my first novel which is called “The Mists of Adriana”.  If you like stories that include fast cars (Porsche 928 and Porsche 944 Turbo S), a beautiful woman of mystery, with assorted intrigue and some mystery along the Maine coast, this might be a good read for you to pick up.  It will be published as a Kindle Book first, but then on all the eBook seller’s sites as well.  Just thought I’d throw that out....

Roger