[V8] T-belt rant

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I bought a new BMW 320i in 1979. I was driving a lot of miles here in 
Maine including a lot of miles well into the late night in winter when I 
was returning home from meetings more than three hundred miles away.  I 
was religious about servicing the BMW, taking it to the dealer exactly 
when the oil change mileage was reached.  I had had a talk with the 
service manager of the dealership when I first took delivery of that car 
and my instructions were very simple:  "Do EVERYthing that you think is 
needed to be done with the car when it is in for service.  I do not want 
the car to stop a hundred miles from the nearest street light in the 
middle of the night when the temperature is fifteen below zero."

The vast majority of my driving was then and still is now over open 
country in remote areas.  While I seldom drive late at night now, and am 
rarely far from at least an occupied farmhouse, it is not uncommon to be 
crossing twenty miles of distance where the hills are such that there is 
no cell phone coverage and no other vehicle might be encountered for 
half an hour or more.  My Audis never fail because they are "excessively 
maintained".

One day the BMW was being serviced.  It was a major service and one that 
required removal of the valve cover and resetting of the valve 
clearances which I think took place every twelve thousand miles by the 
manual.  Nearly complete with the job, the mechanic just happened to be 
peering around inside the exposed cam/cam follower assembly and reached 
his hand down between the front of the cam shaft end.  As it happened 
then, the end cap...actually a plug of some sort that fitted into the 
end of the shaft assembly, fell off into his hand.  As I recall now, BMW 
replaced the camshaft under warranty (although the warranty had expired) 
because that sort of thing was not supposed to happen ever.  Had that 
piece fallen off while I was driving sixty-five miles per hour somewhere 
thirty miles from Millinocket at eleven-thirty at night, the damage to 
the car's engine could have been catastrophic and the damage to me might 
have been fatal.  In the middle of the night thirty miles from 
Millinocket in winter, there are seldom travelers on Interstate 95 and 
it can be more than ten miles to the nearest exit and further than that 
to a telephone.

I discuss the issues with both of our aged Audis with the mechanic. I 
have done business with the same mechanic for almost fifteen years and 
together we decide what is mandatory now, and what might need to be 
watched.  We are "watching" the transfer case output shaft bearing on 
the station wagon now because it is leaking and it is about eight 
hundred bucks in material and labor to repair...eventually, we'll do it, 
but now we are watching the oil level at every oil change.  Otherwise, 
whatever needs to be done gets done because I don't want to have the car 
drop me for any preventable reason and if it costs another three hundred 
bucks to do it right the first time....to "over maintain it" the first 
time, then it's a cost of car ownership.

I realize for a lot of listers owning these cars is a sort of hobby and 
they enjoy their own wrenching time on the cars.  I suspect that many of 
the listers do not regularly drive in extremely rural areas and spend 
most of their driving time in traffic.  Well and good. Yesterday we 
drove to my wife's physical therapy appointment in the city and back.  
Except for the last ten miles it was all in rural, hilly open country 
with exceptionally light traffic.  The whole trip was just over 100 
miles and that was pretty routine.  It's for that routine that we 
excessively maintain our cars and that excessive maintenance is why our 
Audis are as reliable as anything else might be.

Each to his own.

Roger