[V8] Times....times....times.....

[Dave Saad]

Couple of thoughts...
1- park your v8 outside and hope someone hits it...

2- get yourself a nice allroad. I have a long way to go before mine is totally issue free (are they ever?) but so far it is a worthy successor to the v8. Since you are ok with spending money to keep your fleet in shape, I say consider buying one that is a 10 body wise but perhaps has a bad transmission or something. That usually means you can get for next to nothing. Then get it repaired to your specs and for a still reasonable amount of money you have a known good car. Buying used is always a crapshoot and this way actually takes some of the uncertainty out of it.

Dave

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 15, 2015, at 6:58 AM, Roger M. Woodbury <rmwoodbury at fairpoint.net> wrote:
> 
> All this talk about times changing and more and more there are fewer and fewer V8's and oh, woe is me!  I must be getting old and if I concentrated THERE I might get depressed!
> 
> But maybe this is a good nudge to me to once again think about selling my V8.  I tried to sell it last summer and it was a featured car on Bring-a-trailer.  Got quite a lot of lookers and even more commenters. In the end, I had three actual "interestred" lookers.  Of those three, the first two vaporized after making the first contact. The third one popped up about a month and a half after the auction closed with a "serious" (?) offer around $4500. I declined that last offer simply because I had moved on ito fall projects, the V8 was snug in its garage on a battery minder and I had pretty much decided that for four grand I'd just keep the car for if and when the 100CS Avant Quattro died of old age.  That became the plan then:  Just keep the V8 and maybe use it later as a summer car.
> 
> Last fall the Audi 100 CS AVant Quattro was running like shit. Oh, it was starting and running ok, and fuel mileage was pretty much the same, but it didn't feel healthy.  When it went to the wrench for its oil change and annual state safety inspection in the fall, it got some help, mostly in the form of valley gaskets and about forty miles of vacuum line.  I was amazed when I got drove the car out of the shop yard on the way home:  It was transformed into a brand new Audi 100CS and I kid you not, the transformation was miraculous.  190,000 miles at that point, or about that and the car ran like new, winter tires on, new inspection sticker and ready for the next 100k miles.
> 
> And that's pretty much the way things stand.  I rolled the V8 out of the garage this spring because I need the garage space as a workshop while I build finish off one third of the garage into a bathroom and new entry way/mud room in prep for the new, downstairs master bathroom that I'll start next summer.  (Right now the garage is full of rigid insulation for the floor and framing lumber for the walls and new staircase:  better not ask!) This spring I found to my delight (!) that the tiny little stone bruise I got five years ago, the last winter the car was driven in winter, had spread all on its little-bitty self, upward right in front of the driver.  So, before the car is against registered, it will need a windshield. Worse: the headliner over the rear of the rear seating area has started to sag just a bit. Sigh:
> 
> Otherwise the V8 starts and runs fine.  I have filled the tank with new fuel and added a super-additive pickleing type stuff for the fuel and the car could be registered and inspected and run down the road once again.  It does need an a/c compressor, but this summer we have had no need of one, such is the nature of summer in Maine:  most days it's cool enough so that a/c really isn't necessary unless one is driving far and we drive less and less.  My plan right now is to register the V8 again next spring and drive it as a summer/fall car.
> 
> Will I?
> 
> Frankly, it's doubtful.
> 
> We drive every time we need to do anyting. We are ten miles from the grocery store...ten, open road, stop light-free miles.  I make the trip to Belfast three or four times per week. In the mornings I am training in the gym three days a week, and then there are usually three or four other trips to town weekly.  About once per month we drive either to Ellsworth or Bangor, each trip is about a hundred miles. Normally that's it:  works out to around 12 grand per year. One third of the mileage is really "station wagaon miles" because we will be picking up stuff...staples from Sam's Club for instance, and the V8 just would be harder to deal with for that duty.
> 
> There was a time when I drove three hundred miles per day, two or sometimes three times a week.  Now, driving is a necessary evil and frankly, I take little joy from it.  I do 99% of the driving, although my wife still can drive, it's easier on her back for me to do all the "heavy lifting".  Speaking of which, I have thought that next fall I would like to go to the big weight liftinig competition in Virginia Beach.  My daughter lives not far from there, and I'd love to compete in the event.  My fantasy is to drive to VA, hence, the thought I'd register the V8 in the spring and then make the trip in that.  Love to.  Realistically, I think the idea of getting into a car and driving 800 miles down the Interestate holds almost zero interest.  I can scoot down to Brunswick get on the train and be in Virginia Beach in about the same amount of time that it would take for my wife and I to drive, given her sitting-in-place limitation of about three hundred miles max before sleeping eight hours.
> 
> I guess the truth is there simply is no real, good reason to continue to give house room to the V8.  The station wagon does everything we need a car to do, and does it very well. It really is an outstanding utility vehicle that performs exceptionally well in our normal driving conditions in Maine.  202,000 miles right now, and it could use a cosmetic refurbishment, plus a few small tweaks like window switches and an a/c compressor.  It has some oil leaks, but their accumulated oil leaking isn't serious enough to keep it from passing Maine's annual road-worthy, safety inspection.
> 
> Maybe it's timely for my V8 to make a return crossing to Europe. Maybe there is someone there who would like to have a quite nice V8 with under 100k accumulated.  T here doesn't seem to be anyone here on this side of the pond who does, more and more regrettably, even me.  In the end, I'll likely just have it in the garage on its battery tender until next spring then I'll start thinking about it all again.
> 
> Roger
> 
> P.S. I've had a wicked fantasy about a V8 allroad.  Right now on eBay there is what seems a very, very nice example in Virginia. Original owner, navy blue...nice pictures and no interest at 6 grand. Into its second auction now at $5,995.  I'm not surprised it hasn't sold:  125,000 miles or so.  BUT, the air suspension isn't a killer, but what might be is the prospect of having to do the timing chain over, along with its assorted guides and gizzies that once broken can indeed eat the engine.  Yikes!  That motor makes the timing belt issues with the V8 Quattro seem like a kindergarten!  Still, I think it would be the perfect car for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
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