Audis in Puerto Rico!!

[Luis Marques <marques@ti.com>]

Hey, there is a puertorrican on the list - ME!!  Anyway, Audis were
considered luxury european cars some years ago back when I was in high
school (~1986) untill the 60 min. Unintended Acceleration thing. From
there on, lack of dealer support, bad media coverage, and lack of good
mechanics, parts, etc. were responsible for giving the 5k cars (which is
what comes to mind to the great mayority of peopble when they hear
"Audi") a reputation of unreliable, expensive to maintain cars that
break often.  The situation is slowly changing,  but not nearly as fast
as here in the States.  The Comonwealth imposes a tax on every car that
enters the island and right now it is 30% of the book value so the price
of new cars goes up accordingly.

There are almost no quattro models.  Perhaps because they were not
available with an automatic and the traffic can get quite heavy in San
Juan, plus the majority of wifes don't know how to drive a car with a
manual transmission and we aren't likely to get any snow any time soon.

I do know of a 4kq-with-a-5kt-engine conversion.  They had to put some
sort of hood scoop to (apparently) provide clearance for the 5kt intake
manifold.  Osman is right to point out the driving habits of PRs.  If
you can drive down there, you can drive anywhere.  One good thing is
that we have some nice highways and mountain passes (although not very
long) and even though the official speed limit is 55mph, get this (sit
down) the fine for speeding is $15, no matter how fast you were going,
plus there is little enforcement at night (no speedtraps - just an
ocational patrol car driving around).

Hope you had a nice vacation Osman :-)  El Yunke (our tropical rain
forest) has recovered beautifully from hurracane Hugo, hasn't it?  The
last hurracane Hortencia (?) brought a lot of rain and flooding, but he
winds weren't nearly as strong as Hugo's (~170 mph).

Later,
Luis Marques
'87 4kcsq