Slush Boxii (the plural...)

["Al Powell" <apowell@agcom.tamu.edu>]

Elliott Lim commented about the shop guy at his dealership who won't 
chip his 1990 200.

Ditto!!  I've paid for one trannny rebuild at 63K miles, and I have 
NO intention of doing another.  There's a reason that Audi limited 
the boost on my 200 to 1.4 bar as opposed to 1.8 on the sticks.

IMO, based on considerable research when my tranny failed, the 
automatics in the 84-90 series 5K/100/200 are probably OK for the 
normally aspirated series, but are marginal at BEST for the turbo 
models.  Their typical failure mode is the seals on the hydraulic 
pump going, causing delays shifting into reverse, then failure to 
shift properly when the tranny warms up.

That tranny is a VW unit used in millions of cars, and is really not 
tough to fix, but (as my best local tranny gau told me) the only 
owners who are harder to work with than Volvo owners are Audi people! 
He sez they're usually such a PITA that most tranny shops pass on 
doing the work.  But it's not hard to fix them....

One tech at Maund in Austin (a place which will never see me again if 
I can help it) told me he personally had done at least 30 trans. 
repairs in automatics with the hydraulic pump out!  If ONE dealership 
did that, you can bet Audi had a problem with those trannies which 
they never owned up to.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if the new ones were also marginal for 
some high-stress applications.

The moral, my version:  if you have a slush, enjoy it.  Don't chip 
it, don't boost it, don't screw with the power in any way.  The Audi 
gods will get swift and expensive revenge if you do.


*******************************************************
Al Powell                        Voice:  409/845-2807
107 Reed McDonald Bldg.          Fax:    409/862-1202
College Station, TX 77843      
Http://agcomwww.tamu.edu/agcom/satellit/alpage.htm
*******************************************************