Follow up on my 4kq search. (painfully long)

["Matt Daniels" <matt@sumus.com>]

Well, after looking at numerous different cars and a few different 4kq's, I
decided to go against the majorities opintion and buy the '86 4000 cs
quattro that need about $1300 worth of work to it. Tomorrow will mark the 2
week mark of my ownership, I would have posted earlier, but I just moved
into a new house and I'm now just starting to have some free time again.

After looking at the car one final time and letting my wife drive it, we
decided to buy the car. The following day (a Tuesday) I met the owner at a
local Audi/VW shop and finalized the deal. I probably paid a couple hundred
too much, but oh well. It immediatly went into the shop and had the
following things done/replaced: Right outer boot, rear control arm bushing,
a tune up, and the strut mounts. The tailpipe muffler needed to be replaced,
but I figured that I could get it cheaper than the $280 that I was quoted.

The following day I picked up the car and drove it 30 miles home. About an
hour later, I went to drive it to the store and it was DEAD!!! We jump
started it and moved it out of the way, then tried to start it again, it
wouldn't start. Now theres a nice feeling. I'm hoping that it's the batter,
because the existing one is in pretty bad shape, I buy one that night, and
install it first thing Thurday morning. It starts right up and have had no
problems since.

In the mean time I call around to different exhaust places and get prices on
the rear tailpipe muffler. One place gives me the same $280 price, another
gives me a $165 price and then Midas tells me that all of their forign car
mufflers are on sale for $69! I tell them that it is a quattro and they
assured me that it was the correct price. I get their, and there reaction is
something like "oh, this is a 4wd car". Needless to day, the price was alot
higher and they couldn't get the parts for a week. I go to the $165 place,
again I tell them it's a quattro, you know, a 4wd car, again this place
tells me the price is correct. I take it to them, they get it in the air and
the reaction is the same "This is a all-wheel drive car". Isn't that what I
told you????? Their price now turns into $600 and they couldn't do it for a
week. I break down and take it back to the Audi/VW shop I had it at the day
before. They are able to do it in 4 hours for the quoted price.

BTW, I needed to have the exhaust fixed to pass Utah state safty inspection
and emmisions. The shop that performed all the work was Alpine Foreign Car
Repair in Salt Lake City and I would recommend them, although their labor
seems a bit high.

Most of the major things that where wrong with the car have been done. But
there is one "major" item that needs to be done and a bunch on the waiting
list. Here is a short list:

1. radiator has a minor leak (I know it leaks occationally, but I have had
no puddles on my brand new garage floor). A local used parts place has a
radiator and reservior bottle for under $150. I believe I could install both
of these myself. I was quoted about $400 for the two at the repair shop.

2. Need to replace the window switches in the console.

3. Odometer does not work, and a few lights are burnt out in the instrument
cluster. How easy is it to remove the guages and replace bulbs? What could
be the problem with the odometer?

4. The glass on the right side mirror needs to be replaced. Get it from the
used parts place? Maybe just replace the entire unit?

5. Missing the passanger sun vistor.

6. All the belts will need to be replaced in the near future (late winter,
early spring is when I plan on doing it)

Those are all the items I can think of. The car has been a blast to drive so
far, I had a little run in with some snow the other day and it was fun, but
I couldn't really test it out (this is my first quattro).

It took some work to get it started this morining, anything I can do to get
it to start easier? It is possible that I may have flooded it the other day,
when I pulled it out of my garage to do some work, then moved it again for a
short distance, then pulled it back into the garage. Each time it was
running for less than a minute, I know that this can cause flooding on some
of the newer Audi's, does it hold true for the older ones as well? We'll see
if it starts better in the next few days.

Sorry for such a long message, hope I didn't bore anybody to death.

Matt Daniels
'93 90 S
'86 4kcsq