RE: Musing of an Audi owner (long)

["Buchholz, Steven" <Steven.Buchholz@kla-tencor.com>]

... well, he started it ... ;-)

Since it is coming up on my 20th anniversary of Audi ownership this is an
apropos time for reflection ...

I bought my 1978 Audi Fox GTI in November 1978.  I was a recent college
graduate and this was my first car purchase.  I had sampled the market at
the time, primarily focusing on the American cars, with some consideration
of the offerings from Japan ... and was very close to buying a Plymouth
Horizon or Honda Accord when a friend suggested that I look at the Audi Fox.
I found a car that had the "peppiest" acceleration of the cars I tried, even
though it had one of the smallest engines.  The car also had a lot of
headroom and rear-seat legroom for its size.  It was absolutely clean under
the hood, unlike all of the other cars which were rife with smog pumps,
vacuum plumbing and curburettors.  I almost made a big mistake in my choice
of dealers, but it turns out that I ended up buying my car from a local
dealer, with which I subsequently had years of excellent service.
Interestingly enough, one of my roommates in college ended up buying a 1979
BMW 320i ... paying over twice as much as I did for my car ... but the BMW
was an investment of course ... I had a lot of fun whipping his investment
at the stoplight drags ... hey, I was young ... :-)

I then got to see the follow on developments from Audi in the showroom of my
local dealer.  While I personally did not care for the body style changes
when the Fox became the 4000, I must say that I did wish I knew that the 4k
5+5 was coming ... I really fell in love in 1982, when I saw my first QTC.
I knew there was no way I'd ever be able to have one of these lovely beasts,
but I did enjoy going to the dealer to drool over them.  Well, 1985 rolled
around, and the Fox had given me seven years of faithful service, but I was
looking for something new.  I was leaning toward the new RX-7 (with the 944
body style) ... but then I found that I could get a slightly used Quattro
Turbo Coupe for about the same money.  I was completely unaware of what I
was getting myself into, but I ended up getting my '83 QTC with the factory
8" Ronals back in 1986.  Thanks to a bad propshaft carrier bearing, I got
the dealer to give me a new tranny when I got the car.  I did end up getting
my hands dirty when I decided to have the turbo rebuilt because of an
annoying blue puff when the car was started cold ... I ended up doing the
turbo, resurfacing the EM and having the head redone (thanks to a broken
EZ-out in the rearmost EM stud).  I also ended up ripping out the interior
to clean up some totally bizarre stereo wiring that the PO had done.  After
that point the car was used as a daily driver for a number of years with
nothing required other than routine maintenance.  Rightly or not, I
attribute the need for work to the previous owner's lack of care ...

Wedding bells rang in 1988, when I got the pleasure of learning how
wonderfully engineered Toyotas are.  The wife had a '77 Celica GT, while I
had the Fox, the urQ and a motorcycle.  It is sad to hear how much she paid
for her car ... used it was nearly as much as I paid for the Fox new ...
with the Fox clearly being superior in both engineering and ergonomics.  The
Toyota was totalled in an extremely minor traffic accident ... but the other
person's insurance paid us much more than the car was worth ... and by now
Pam had gotten accustomed to driving the Fox ... and the Coupe ... :)

The next car purchase was in 1991, when we purchased a 1988 Audi 5000CSQ
Avant.  While I am not at all sorry I bought this car, it is quite apparent
that this model and vintage probably represent the lowest point in Audi's
history (at least that part of it with which I am familiar).  While the
water cooled turbo, quattro and ABS were extremely desirable features and
generally pretty robust in and of themselves, the nagging failures of the
"bells and whistles" (climate control, seats, windows, trunk lock cylinders)
certainly sour the impression.  To reinforce this, I went out and bought a
1987 CSQ Sedan a few years later, which fairly promptly decided to eat a
valve ... :(  As I stated, I am still not sorry that I bought the Avant, and
I am now in the process of restoring it mechanically, and I am convinced
that when I'm done I will have a car that will give good service into the
next millennium.  When I look past the annoyances, I see a car that has all
of Audi's active safety (AWD, ABS, good handling) in a practical car that
can almost be used like a small truck (thanks to the roof rails) and yet can
handle the twisties about as well as the QTC can.

Now things seem to be happening more fast and furious.  While I had the Fox
for eight years before getting the Coupe ... and that for 5 years before the
5000 ... it seems like I've been accumulating cars quite quickly over the
past couple years.  I did manage to snag a jewel of a car ... a 1985 4000SQ
for a song, thanks to a bad clutch.  In response to the earlier condolences
for those who have Audis over 100K miles, I purchased this car ... 12 years
old with over 200K miles on the clock in a heartbeat.  The original clutch
went out at 204K miles (actually the clutch was probably good to go farther,
but the throwout bearing had worn through the fingers on the pressure
plate).  With the replacement of the heater core and hoses, we now have a
car that I would drive to Pikes Peak tomorrow without the least of concerns.

... last but by no means least ... this past July and with the gracious
assistance of Ben Howell I picked up a 1991 V8 quattro with 5-speed.  While
there are always things that you have to deal with when you buy a used car
... I have a car that I enjoy driving as much as the QTC (perhaps more?).
After years of driving turbocharged cars, I must say that I really like
having a car that has good torque off the line ... and it is fun having a
car with sufficient power to be able to break the tires loose and give a bit
of oversteer when pushed (nowhere near as much as the Trans-Am 6-speed that
my brother-in-law bought though :).  All that fun from a tiny V8 ... I now
understand why Ben has chosen this drivetrain to retrofit into his QTC.  I
need to find two more myself ... one for the Coupe and another for the
Avant!  Too bad so few were imported into the USA.  I have been doing all
that I can to show others the good side of this somewhat maligned car ...

Over these years of experience (I just added it up ... 42.5 years
accumulated!) I definitely see the family resemblance in the cars.  I have
taken the Fox, QTC, Avant and V8 each on trips where the amount of time
spent en route per day is rather high.  One common trait I see is that the
Audi is a car that I can sit in comfortably for days at a time, and that the
cars seem to be designed to "eat up" the challenge of extended trips ... I
even drove the 14 year old QTC out to Pikes Peak and back last year, with
the only problem being a breathing problem at 13000 feet.  This year, I
actually drove the V8 for 24 hours straight from Colorado to California ...
it never missed a beat.  

When considering the V8 we thought about Audis current offerings ...
probably right now the A4, 1.8Tq would be the car we would consider.  While
we may end up getting one of these down the road, our thinking was that it
is nice having a car that is a little bit bigger when you've got a little
one to maneuver in and out of a car seat in the back!

... now for my problem ... I seem to have figured out how to acquire cars
... Audis ... but have yet to develop the skills needed to part with them.
Believe it or not, all of the vehicles that I have listed above are still in
my possession!

... if you got this far in this post I want to thank you for taking the time
to let me share this retrospective with you!  I truly wish you all the best
with your Audis ... :)

Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)