RE: My '92 Quattro is a piece of #$$%^#@!!

[Aleksander Mierzwa <alex@matrix.com.pl>]

Steve, two words come to mind: bad luck. You just had a bad luck,
because Audis are usually _very_ durable cars and it applies also to the
automatic transmissions. But sometimes, you know, sh*t happens. I
remeber an article in the German automotive magazine "Auto Motor und
Sport". They took a new E-class Mercedes for a long-term test. During
first 50k km it had to be towed twice, and the second time it was
because the autobox failed. 
Now my advice: act cool. Go to another independent transmission rebuild
workshop for an advice. The transmission on your car is not manufactured
by Audi, but by the German company ZF. I'm sure the replacement parts
are available from them. You may want to contact ZF of America for an
advice. It is possible that the cause of the failure is a $50 valve that
can be replaced without removing the tranny from the car. Let someone
check _what_exactly_ failed on the transmission. You may also consider
buying a used one at the junkyard, it may even be a cheapest solution. I
hope in spite of this bad experience you will decide to keep your Audi,
that's otherwise a wonderful car, and remain subscribed to the list.

Aleksander Mierzwa
Warsaw, Poland
mailto:alex@matrix.com.pl
87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
91 mountain bike (just in case both cars broke at the same time :-)

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Steve Spurlock [SMTP:steves@bigdconst.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, October 07, 1997 12:48 AM
> To:	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
> Subject:	My '92 Quattro is a piece of #$$%^#@!!
> 
> [...]
> However, after putting a total of 3,000 miles on this piece of junk,
> my
> wife had the transmission go out!!  Yup, I was driving it at the time
> with
> an Audi mechanic beside me in the passenger seat.  They had to tow it
> to the dealership and now they tell me (verified by independent
> transmission shops) that Audi sells NO repair parts for the tranny and
> that I have to replace it with a NEW one for $6,000 !  I've never
> owned
> an Audi before and assure you I never will again.  Is this indicative
> of
> the quality of these cars?
> 
> The dealer (who happens to be a friend) has so far gotten the factory
> to say they'll contribute $2,000 toward the cost of the transmission,
> since I had it in twice for suspected problems, and each time they
> plugged it into the computer and reported "no problem."
> 
> Any ideas?