RE: Volvo vs Audi

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

> The Audi wins hands down here.  The interior and exterior
> hold up much better than the volvo's.
> 
> My neighbor has a 94-95 850 GLT, Maroon/Tan leather.  The interior
> is holding up ok, but the clearcoat is pealing off in a dozen or
> so places, some places as big as a half dollar.... it's got just 
> under 100k miles on it.
> 
> In comparison my wife's 89 Audi 100 Wagon has 135k miles and looks
> near new.  It's got a few dings and scratches, but no rust at all and
> the leather interior has no rips tears etc...  I do have a 4 year old 
> so it get's used :-)
> 
> My other car an 1990 Audi V8 quattro sedan has 120k miles and most
> people who don't know cars think it's a 96-97 vehicle.  Again no rust
> and the interior is in excellent condition.
> 
> With maintenance and care an Audi will go routinely go 200-300k easily, 
> and there are people on the list with cars in the 400k+ range.
> 
... well to flip the coin over I just read in the paper the other day that
someone just got their car listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as
the vehicle with the highest mileage ... was it pushing 2 or 3 million
miles?  It wasn't an Audi ...

I definitely agree about how amazingly well Audis hold up cosmetically as
well as mechanically in most cases ... I've got an '85 4kSQ which has over
210K miles ... the exterior is perfect and the interior is in excellent
shape too.  More than a couple people have been surprised to hear that it is
an '85 model ... and it hasn't lived in a garage for quite some time.  With
the exception of a bit of wear through on the driver's seat back bolster the
leather interior on the '83 QTC is in great shape (and the dash doesn't have
a crack), as is the interior on the '88 5kCSQA and '91 V8q.  It seems that
some black leather interiors like to split their stitching at 8-10 years
from what I've seen. 

Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)