Re: ur-q build date identification.

[Todd Phenneger <phen9461@uidaho.edu>]

Hmmm,
	I'm wondering if this car was ma;ybe a Grey Market import then.
WOuld make sense as if it originated in Euope and was brought in before
its time then it could very well have that high of a chassis number.  I
think thats the most likely explanation at this point.
	Thanks for the info though.  Thats interesting.
L8R

	Todd Phenneger
	1985 4000 quattro / silver / daily driver
	1983 ur-q / black / fixing it up
	1984 4000 quattro / modified/ awaiting Turbo Transplant.
	1987 4000 quattro / Saphire Metallic Blue/ Girlfriend's
	1996 A6q / Volcano / Dads Car
   *****1985 5kt / PARTING OUT!

On Sat, 5 Jun 1999, Phil Payne wrote:

> In message <Pine.GHP.4.05.9906042240410.22148-100000@raven.csrv.uidaho.edu> Todd Phenneger writes:
> 
> > But this one was WAY off.  For the US models at least it pretty
> > much follows it.  My 02/82 is #76.  A friends 01/82 is like #45.  This car
> > is actually 12/81 I guess (small mistake in original post) and is #00554.
> > That a BIG difference.  It should be like #10 (+- 20)
> 
> Yes, they sometimes seem to have pulled a chassis or engine out of the
> line for quite a while.
> 
> Don't forget that these cars were literally hand-built in bays.  If they
> ran out of some critical component (e.g., on one occasion steering pumps,
> on another occasion engines) they would carry on doing what they could
> and store the half-built cars.  If they shoved them into a hall, they
> might well finish them off in reverse order - last in, first out because
> they couldn't get to the ones they pushed in first without clearing the
> others.
> 
> We have detailed records in the Club database for around 1,000 cars -
> VIN and engine number, especially.  You can see the correlations (and
> otherwise) and that there are several sequences where engine numbers
> run backwards for a dozen or more cars.  It doesn't affect you guys,
> but in the 1988 model year there is a group of fifty cars fitted with
> engines you'd expect to have seen nine months earlier - a major issue
> because the timing belt changed from 120 teeth to 147 teeth and Audi
> calls the spares by chassis number.  Wrong for these engines.
> 
> We've also had several instances of, e.g., a December VIN with every
> part fitted marked 'Nov' or 'Oct' and a 'Jan' steering pump.
> 
> --
>  Phil Payne
>  UK Audi quattro Owners Club
>