[V8] arrival of the faster rats....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I'm leaning more in that direction actually.  Just keeping the V8 going 
and keeping the 100 going until something seriously breaks.

No SUV's for me though.  Just on principle alone.

R


On 9/21/2015 10:14 AM, Dave Saad wrote:
> Drive the V8!
> What are you saving it for? It's in the garage just waiting you. Drive it till it drops then get a newer A6. Dumping a bunch of money into the 100 won't make it any younger. You need a reliable car with good parts availability. It is hard to keep an old car going even if you do the work yourself. The cash outlay is probably the same to just get something newer. Honestly in your case I would look at an explorer. Not sexy perhaps but they are cheap to buy and own and will hold up in the winter conditions. My 4.6l 2003 has plenty of power and has yet to cost me a nickel since I bought it about 40000 miles ago. The only negative is the seats - and maybe a different trim package would solve that.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Sep 20, 2015, at 8:19 AM, Roger M. Woodbury <rmwoodbury at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>>
>> ....or how to get a good, Sunday morning laugh at my expense.
>>
>> Well, the saga of the daily driver and V8 in my house continues. Now as the 1994 100 Avant Quattro passed 203,000 miles and going very strongly, I have been again contemplating the future of the fleet here.  The need we have in this house is for one car, a station wagon, and not two, since the V8 has not been put back on the road for two years and really isn't needed.  But the "daily driver" has passed the two century's mark on the odo, and finish-wise will really need attention in the next year or two.
>>
>> I recently watched two eBay auctions for A6 Avants that were very interesting. Both cars were in Florida, one a 2.8 litre and one a 3.0 litre, both of which had fewer than 80,000 miles.  The 2.8 litre car (2002, I think) went for less than $4500 and the year newer car, which was a one-owner being sold by the original owner, did not pass the auction, the bidding stopping below five grand. All of which brings me to our 1994 100 Avant with it's 203,000+ miles, needing exterior restoration and a few other things.
>>
>> It's relevant to recall that we have owned this car since it had 39,000 miles, which for us is 14 years.  I have a VERY thick folder of maintenance records and know EVERYthing that has been done to the car in it's life. All work was performed by the same wrenching service save one or two items oil changes when we first got the car.  The car basically runs as it did when first purchased, delivering the same fuel mileage and using or leaking about the same amount of oil.  It is not rusty beneath at all, a testiment to Audi's galvanizing process.
>>
>> So the choice is to keep the 100 indefinitely, getting the body restored so it doesn't look quite as tacky as it does (particularly the roof which is now beginning to lose it's dark green color in favor of something more like a greenish-taupe, if you can imagine that).  In order to really consider keeping this car running for, say, another 100,000 miles, making this possibly the last, daily driver we have, it will cost in round numbers, three grand to refinish the exterior (depending on whether or not I can buy the mouldings for the door from the aftermarket or from Audi. From Audi the door mouldings are $1100 by themselves! Ouch!).  I would also pull the engine and have it resealed, eliminating all the oil leaks.  I would also want to have the instrument cluster rebuilt so both the fuel and temperature gauges work properly, fix all window switches as well as all the other switches that no longer light up at night.  That's all the car needs as mechanically beneath the car is up to snuff now.  So total cost probably in the five or six grand range in total, or roughly the same cost to buy a 2002-2004 A6 Avant with less than 100,000 miles.  (Let's assume I can find one that has a good service and maintenance history that can be verified and won't need a timing belt as soon as it arrives! That will take some doing by itself.)
>>

>> It's an odd sort of choice. On the one had, with the investment of "cosmetic dollars", which is mostly what I have described, I will have a 1994 Avant that still has a lot of miles, but will DO precisely what the newer Audi Avants will do.  The added advantage is that excise tax and insurance are lower and will remain that way.
>>
>> I will not consider going newer than 2005 for anything, as the more "modern" electronics scare me to death:  they WILL fail expensively faster than will the basic mechanics of the vehicles and I do not want nor need to consider blue, red or green tooth technology in an automobile.  (Oh, and I'd LOVE a 2005 allroad V8, but THAT engine's timing chain guide failure rate and the cost of repair of that issue alone scars me to death also.  The air suspension not so much!).
>>
>> Now having those ponderings, and congratulating our Audi on how well it goes and how reliable it is, last week it failed to start at precisely the moment my wife needed to drive off to her hair appointment. Now if you can imagine how worthless a car becomes suddenly short of a wreck, have it fail to service your wife's hair-dressing appointment schedule leavinig her with her hair not doing a single thing she demands of it!  Talk about looks that KILL!
>>
>> Well, at 203,000 miles, I sort of assumed the problem was the crank position sensor. That little item failed on the car a long while back....well earlier than 70,000 miles as I recall, although I have not gone through the service history to determine exactly WHEN it failed. I automatically thought a failed CPS might be the cause as the starter would spin the engine, but there was absolutely nothing more happening than that.  So I called to speak with the wrench.  We discussed having the car towed in for service (bear in mind, it is 50 miles to the shop from here.).  He asked if when I tried to start the engine if the tach moved, explaining if the tach moved then the problem was NOT the crank position sensor, but most probably a fuel pump.  "Hmmm," I thought.  "I never thought of the fuel pump."  So, with John on the phone I walked out to the car and turned the key.....to find the car started up immediately.  "Yup," said John.  "Fuel pump. They will do that for a long while.  Just carry a boom handle around in the car and when it fails to start, smack the underside of the fuel tank with the broom handle and it'll go.  You'll need to replace the fuel pump at some point, probably before winter."
>>
>> "Okay," I thought. "I remember that the fuel pump is accessed through the top of the fuel tank and there is an access panel beneath the floor of the rear of the car.  I think it's beneath the spare tire wheel well, and /I can do it/. I think I tested the fuel level sensor on that when the fuel gauge started to read oddly."  We cancelled plans for the flat bed to pick up my car.
>>
>> I decided to go on-line and see where I could best buy a fuel pump.  Turned out to be Rock Auto, and a hundred bucks and two days later the pump arrived (talk about FAST shipping!).  Friday afternoon I went out to examine how to proceed on Saturday morning with the new pump install project....to find.....NO access port in the floor of the back of the Avant!  WTF?  I CLEARLY remember seeing the access port for the fuel pump....or at least I saw the access panel in SOME German car I owned....hmmm.....was it the 928S4?  could it have been THAT car?  Or how about the 200 Avant that went away before the 100 Avant was even born?  Or maybe the V8?  (No, not the V8:  I looked and although the floor might come up, it was glued down in the Black Forest like the elves meant it to be glued down!).
>>
>> So, now I have a new, Bosch fuel pump and a functioning Audi 100 daily driver that will need to be mated to its new pump by the wrench when they drop the fuckin' fuel tank to receive it since I cannot perform that surgery here in my own garage.  Grrrrrrr. AND then I will have an aging Audi 100 with a new fuel pump and probably the decision about whether to replace it or not will merely be put off for yet another year or five!
>>
>> Well another good thing is that the Audi 100 has Euro headlights and if I get something newer, I'll have to convince myself that whatever it is with its polycarbonate headlights is somehow just as good in the dark (which I don't believe for a nano second now).
>>
>> So I'll just truck along as it is.  I have a new broom handle in the back of the Avant should it fail again to start and will not hesitate to give it a good whack in the ass with the broom.  Oh, and another good thing. A long time ago, someone gave me a couple of Audi logo stickers which have sat in my desk drawer for a long time now.  I'll take one out this afternoon and put an Audi logo onto that broom handle and make it look just like it came from those elves who screwed the car together to begin with.
>>
>> Roger
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