[V8] ....reality check

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I just got the '94 100CS Quattro Avant backfrom the shop.  This time it 
was for an inspection sticker and I knew going in the front door it was 
going to need front shocks and mounts.  This is the second set of mounts 
but the first set of struts the car has required. What I didn't expect 
was both front tie rods were loose and those had to be replaced.  I also 
had the winter tires and wheels put on along with alignment and 
balancing plus the tail gate latch was replaced with one off the parts 
car out back.  The total was a tad more than twelve hundred bucks.

Now, the car rides and handles as new.  196,000 miles and counting and 
it is NOT rusty beneath, which for a year round Maine vehicle that is 21 
years old is very unusual.  Next up for that car will be an a/c 
compressor and window switch for the right front door, and maybe motors 
for the rears, but that's optional.  I might have this done in the 
spring although we didn't really need the a/c last summer, save for one 
horrific day.

Now, for my V8.  We could really, REALLY go back to one vehicle in this 
house. The V8 currently is not registered and has not been registered 
since May, 2013.  It goes in and out of the garage about every two 
weeks, sometimes getting driven five miles or so just for fun, but it 
needs to be inspected.  It also needs an a/c compressor and worse still, 
the ping I got five years ago one later winter day has inexplicably 
spread so before it will pass inspection, it will need a 
windshield....I'll let the insurance company pay for that.

But the V8 is 100% ready to be driven once these few things are done.  
Before I drove it regularly two years ago, it was just out of the shop 
and needed very little for the forseeable future.  So given that we 
really only need one vehicle, I tried to sell it.  Arguably it may be 
the best there is....although I am sure this is another one somewhere 
that has lower miles and is as well, or even better maintained.

I listed in on eBay to see what might happen.  The answer is, a few 
offers that were not worth considering and a few tire kickers. So I put 
the car away.

Last summer I put it on Bring-a-trailer and got a lot of the usual 
snarky comments and two serious inquiries.  I also received a serious 
inquiry about a month ago, offerint $4000.

But I have decided to keep the car and put it back on the road once the 
worse of the winter is gone.  It will go back to the shop for its 
inspection and I will put new tires on it.  At less than 90,000 miles 
the car is really as new, although I know that I have a seeping steering 
rack (not badly seeping, but seeping nonetheless), and the car will need 
it's a/c compressor.  Other than that I think the car can give us 5000 
miles per  year or so with minimal work...we're forty thousand miles to 
timing belt service and probably will need to have that done sooner on 
mileage alone.  It's a 1990, by the way.

So, I am going to keep mine. And I am going to continue to take it to 
the shop that has worked on all my cars because I know I can keep it 
maintained well there and they are actually enthusiastic about working 
on the car.  It is cheaper to maintain these two very old Audis than to 
buy anything else. There is nothing that will perform a general haulage 
mission as well as the 100CS, and the V8 is every day more and more 
unique:  as a driver for Maine, all I need is a set of European 
headlamps, but since my stock lamps are properly relayed, for the half 
dozen or so times I drive it in the real dark, the headlamps aren't 
apriority unless someone has a set they want to sell rather than crush.

I'd get bored to death by a Camry and there aren't many of those running 
around with more than forty or fifty thousand miles that aren't pretty 
rusty already.  The Japs have figured out how to build cars that time 
out while their engines are still running fine. Nope.  Not for me.

I went through a frenzy about a 1999 or 2000 Mercedes 4-matic wagon a 
year ago.  Good value and they run well. Not so electronically 
interconnected that a tiny speck of dust in a tiny relay someplace 
requires two thousand dollars of time on Mercedes proprietary electronic 
diagnostic equipment.  But they have polycarbonate headlamp covers and 
there is simply something insulting to me about buying a supposedly fine 
automobile that cost a gazillion dollars originally, that has plastic 
headlamps that turn yellow an dhave to be either replaced or less than 
perfectly refinished.

  So, I'll keep my antiques.  a grand a year or so to maintain them is 
cheaper than any other automotive game I can think of.

FWIW

Roger

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