No Subject

[rich@pony.cis.smu.edu (Rich Andrews)]

My 18 year old son recently purchased a 1985 audi 5000 non-turbo automatic
for himself.  We now have 3 audis in the driveway!  At any rate
he came home one night and said I should listen to the car.
What I heard was a whine under acceleration that was speed
related.  I told him to take it to a dealer and the bottom 
line was that the differential was going bad.  The dealer said
that the recall should have prevented the failure, but 
it was not caught in time.  I asked him what the diagnosis was
and he said that the transmission and diff. should be replaced.
At first he said that audi would just pay for the part and that
I would have to pay the labor (ouch!), but when I talked to 
the service manager about when audi started just covering parts,
he said that they started 2-3 weeks ago just covering the parts.
I asked him for the 1-800 number for audi and he immediately 
said that he would call the district manager.  The service
mgr called back in 20 minutes and then said that audi would cover parts
and labor.  I think that the little speech that I gave him about 
having 3 audis helped a bit.  The dealer did charge him for
transmission mounts, etc. but that bill total was about 125.00.
Not bad for a new trans-axle.

On a different note...my 90 200T has developed a strange symptom.
After it has  sat for several hours, occasionally it will not idle.
I can keep it running by pressing on the accelerator lightly
but when I remove it, the engine rpm are too low to keep
it running.  If I would tap on the idle stabilization valve
then all would be OK.  Has anyone had any experience in 
cleaning or repairing these critters?  My 200 also seems
a bit hard to start cold.  It takes about 4 seconds on the
starter for it to fire.  Any suggestions on where to start?
It has been that way since I bought the car 1 year ago.

Thanks
rich