Good Audi day yesterday...

["Sean Ford" <sean@nwh.org>]

Good morning Audinuts,
   I had a great Audi day yesterday and thought I'd share. I met with Jim
Griffin, fellow q-lister, yesterday for lunch in Framingham, MA, for a
little pizza and a lot of Audi/QCUSA/Lime Rock talk. It was nice to finally
put a face with a name, and to show off my car to someone who would
appreciate it.
  
  So, then, last night I had to drop my car off at Rietzl Audi (I still
have a smelly cat, and hope to have a new one soon, there's only 5 days
left on my emissions warranty!), I really like that service department. I
have a very strange, rythmic, driveline vibration that can only be felt at
speed after the car's fully warm, between 2800-3000 rpm; you know, the kind
of problem that you can never reproduce for the service rep or mechanic.
Well, the service rep at Rietzl and I spent about a half hour in the car
until we reproduced it. Maybe I've been going to the wrong shops, but I've
never experienced that kind of committment to a problem before; usually
it's the old, "Well, it's not happening now, so we can't fix it" deal. I
just really apprieciated that kind of service. We then spent a few minutes
in an A6, and then another 100, to see if we could get the problem to
happen there. Nope, the problem actually exists in my car, I just hope they
can fix it, at least they now know that I'm not crazy.

Funny thing happened at Rietzl, Wolfgang Rietzl was there, speaking with
his German accent (I don't know why I love that there is an actual German
accent there, but I do), and it looked as if he had just returned from some
cross country skiing or something, in his A8. Herr Rietzl appears to be in
his late 50's - early 60's, and there's a great b&w picture of him in the
service department, he's seated in a 60's era Porsche 911 shaking hands
with Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and it's signed! So Herr Rietzl and another
German accented man get into the black A8 to leave and I notice that he's
not exactly taking his time getting out of the parking lot. He stops at the
street, signals a right hand turn... and kicks that A8 in the pants. There
was a little sand on the street, I first heard the front wheels slip, then
the rears, and all the while a deep, throaty exhaust.... and very possibly,
two older German men laughing. I love that dealership. Good Audi day for
me.

Sean Ford
sean@nwh.org
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Newton, MA  02162 (USA)
'92 Audi 100CS 5spd  19K miles (and counting)
'89 Suzuki Katana 600 14K miles (out and about, and running strong)