Re: To get/not to get: Audi 90 Quattro

[pfh@craycos.com (Peter Hill)]

> Yesterday I test drove a 1988 Audi 90 Quattro(four door)...

1988 was the first year of the current model, as I recall.  I have an '89
80Q with 45K miles (72K km).

> The car had 110k km, leather interior, lots of chip damage to the front,
> cracked headlight and a leaking/rusty A/C condenser.

Yeah, Audi must use soft paint, everybody I know with an Audi has serious
chip damage in front.  My '80 Audi 4000 (80 outside the U.S.) had the same
problem.  My '85 Saab 900S did not.

I've had to replace one headlight (warranty, so I don't know how much).

> The test drive was ok, the ABS worked fine and the engine revved
> freely. When exceeding 100km/h it was quite noisy (engine/wind noise)
> and it seemed to vibrate slightly (but not in the steering 
> wheel) it had winter tires.

I notice considerable low-frequency noise (rumble) with the snow tires on.
The summer tires are much quieter.  I assume we have the same (ten-valve)
engine; I don't notice excessive engine noise in fifth gear cruising at
65-75MPH (105-120km/h).

> [...] I hear its quite expensive to change the shocks on these four
> wheel drive cars. How much?

Last time for me was on my '80 Audi.  Anybody have recent numbers?

> The engine looked like a modern version of my 85 coupe engine.
> It seemed to have less torque than my car, but would rev higher/cleaner.

Redline for the current ten-valve engine is 6350 RPM, as I recall.
I see it often (in second gear).

By the way, I have saved the quattro mailing list since June of last year.
I can mail it to others on the quattro mailing list.  I'd prefer to
mail it in one piece; so you need the "compress" and "uudecode" programs
to read it (compressed and uuencoded, it's 95K bytes).

--Peter