My Almost V8 Experience

[Charles Schwartz <cschwart@stern.nyu.edu>]

There was an ad in last Sunday's New York Times for a 1990 V8 Quattro with
45k and a bad trans.  The owner wanted the best offer over the $1200 he had
been offered by the local dealer Zumbach.  Zumback had given him a repair
estimate of $10,000 for the new trans plus over $1000 to install it.

After making several calls this is what I found out. 
The V8 trans is very electronic and uses around 15 solenoids internally.
For this reason, it requires special diagnostic equipment to test it.  It
could even be possible that the various gears and bearings are okay, but
the problem could be electrical.  Very few if any Audi dealerships bother
to have this diagnostic equipment.  Instead, they just replace the trans
for 10k or so.

The price of used transmissions ranged from $3000 to $4500 at various junk
yards including Shokan.  Shokan offers a 30 day warranty.

You can buy a completely rebuilt and tested V8 trans for about $1700 plus
$70 shipping from Autosports Unlimited.  Their trans comes with a 12
month/12K warranty.  There may be cheaper places but by the time I found
this out, the guy had sold the car.  Too bad, I even found a mechanic
willing to install it for $400.

So the moral of this story is to not be afraid to by a V8 if it only has a
trans problem.  There are economical solutions.

Charles