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Audiworld is my main source
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Posted by Bill Homer [Email] (#3427) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Bill Homer) on Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:43:59 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: What sites do you go to for Audi info?, Noel, Tue, 3 Feb 2009 09:19:42
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There are other Audi sites, but hey, how much time can I rationalize pissing away on cars :) ? By the way, I spend much more time here, the Audi is my wife's car.

Good mechanics are good mechanics. There is certainly a learning curve, but Audis are essentially VWs, and what foreign car mechanic hasn't worked on a VW? I used to take the Audi to a general "foreign car" mechanic, but after the last round of ripoff pricing ($65 for a CV boot part, $200+ to recharge the A/C, come on!), I take it to my SAAB specialist who actually knows a lot of the "hidden secrets". You might want to ask your current mechanic if he works on Audis or knows someone to refer you to ("for a friend", naturally).

I don't bring the Audi in for repairs often, and I've owned it for 12.5 years, but some of the most trivial tasks can be insane amounts of work. On the V6 engines, the thermostat and waterpump are located on the front of the engine, behind the timing belt (yes, they use a belt not a chain, and it needs to be replaced every 60K - 90K depending on model). To access the front of the engine requires that you pull off the front bumper and put the front lock carrier/radiator in "service position", which means sliding it forward a few inches on some long bolts or taking off the entire front of the car for easy access. The Graf waterpump that I had preemptively installed when the thermostat failed three years ago also failed, and I got to pay for seven hours of work again (used a genuine Audi pump this time). The wheel bearings are underdesigned and painful to replace (have replaced three of them so far in 110K). The "five link" front suspension is an incredible piece of mechanical engineering, but the engineers should have figured out how to make the control arms last more than 40K - it has undersized integral ball joints mounted upside down so they self-destruct from lack of lubrication. And when you replace any suspension parts, you need to find a skilled shop to redo the four-wheel alignment. The A/C evaporator on mid-90s models leak and will require disassembly of the entire dashboard to replace (we have been getting it recharged every summer instead of spending $1800 for this). Every Audi that I have owned (this is the third owned, fourth if you count the company car I had in Europe) has leaked oil, whereas my SAABs have leaked only at the valve cover gaskets and power steering hoses, much easier to fix than camshaft seals, etc.

Despite all that, the Audi is much more solid and nicer to drive than the SAABs that I have owned and I hope to keep it going for several more years.

posted by 74.93.67...
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