Re: to audi or not to audi

[steveb@falcon.kla-tencor.com (Steven Buchholz)]

Remember that you are talking about buying a brand new car ... most of 
those people who are doing major work are doing this on cars that are 
10-15 years old!  I own 5 Audis at the current time, with a combined 
age of 69 model years!

Let me give you my impression about Audi reliability.  I am convinced 
that the running gear that Audi builds is quite robust and can easily 
run 200K miles without even needing a clutch replacement (my "newest" 
Audi is an '85 4kQ with 204,000 miles that I got for cheap because the 
original clutch failed).  Audi's weakess in the '80s was that it 
didn't do nearly as good a job on robustness for the bells and whis-
tles (I guess the steering rack/bomb on the 5ks don't quite fit here).  
In any event, IMO an older Audi without the fancy gizmos is likely to 
last forever with proper maintenance.  I have heard that newer Audis 
are better in the bells and whistles department, but I cannot speak 
from experience.  

I could also go into my opinions on the appliances, but it is probably 
best not to.  I think that if you bought a new Audi and observed the 
maintenance schedule you probably would be able to "put gas in and 
forget it" ...

HTH!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)
with 69 model years' worth of Audis ...