Just bought from Pelican

[ckcarr]

Hey,

I was finally thinking and bought a couple Porsche parts from here today. I used to automatically go somewhere else (never thinking) but then remembered to "ABP." Always buy Pelican.

Not that it was much, but its the thought.

[jweicht]

Thanks for the timely reminder, CK! Just thinking this morning of making a run to the cage dealer for some 325i tune-up parts and then I saw your post. Went right into the Pelican Parts cage area and placed an order for everything I needed. So it will take the parts a few days to get here, good prices and support of this board's host make it well worth it.

[Don Ro]

Thanks II.
'Made a note to myself last month to purchase some generic items from Wayne.

[ErricZ]

Yup, suspension time for my Bimmer is coming quickly, Wayne will be getting my biz as usual.

Thanks Wayne!


(Wipes nose and chin ...)

[davidb2]

Too bad Wayne doesn't sell aftermarket cycle parts, his support of this excellent site alone would get him alot of loyal customers.

[roger albert]

Good ideas guys.
Since I bought an SUV (not my cup of tea, but a good track/tow vehicle) I'm going to have to continue to limp the ol p-car along as a daily driver for a while yet. About time to plow at least a bit of cash into it for the first time in a while. I'll try and direct most or even all of it here.

[gigantic]

as soon as wayne starts stocking Audi parts, i'll be sure to buy...

[ckcarr]

Originally posted by gigantic
as soon as wayne starts stocking Audi parts, i'll be sure to buy...

The problem with stocking Audi parts is you have to stock twice as many!

(rim shot)

[gigantic]

[roger albert]

Actually, I first came to Pelican to get some generic Bosch parts (coil, wires etc) for my old Audi. Wayne was cool about digging them up. My old 944 is getting a bit long in the tooth. Probably replace it with a previous generation M3 next time

[ckcarr]

Originally posted by gigantic

Nothing to be confused about.

Long ago we had a couple of the infamous Audi 5000 cars. They were a nightmare.

New ones are great I hear, but I'm still gunshy of them.

[gigantic]

i had an audi 4000 2-door sedan of the same era. never had a problem other than slightly premature brake wear. a friend of mine had a 5000 at the same time that he rolled several times (1 occasion) and drove away. i felt they were great cars. one of the few that i actually fit in. ironically Mini's are a great fit too.
the problem with current audi's & their volkswagen brothers, is that of too many non interacting electrical systems. my wife has more than a few stickers on the info dash to cover up warning lights for non-functioning sensors. to replace the sensors would cost more than 3 grand, with no guarantee that the repair would last more than a few months. stickers cost pennies and last much longer. if not for the sparky woes, Audi's are great. a cam-bus type system would make them perfect.
cheers,
Lance

[ckcarr]

Lance,

Not to keep beating a dead horse. I'm just adding this because I found it.

Interestingly, this article just came out this past summer about the Audi 5000 and it's percieved problems. It's interesting reading.


'Audi 5000' to Success
Ward's Auto World, June 1, 2005 by Drew Winter

Byline: DREW WINTER

It is the scariest roller-coaster ride in recent automotive history.

It began in the early 1980s with a steady rise in sales and euphoric predictions. Thanks to ultra sleek styling that pioneered the idea of having glass flush with the car's exterior surfaces, Audi appeared well on its way to becoming a worthy rival to BMW and Mercedes at the top of the luxury car food chain in the U.S.

Then disaster struck. A woman crushed her young son against the back wall of her garage with an Audi 5000, the brand's flagship. She claimed the car accelerator stuck, and she was unable to stop the car with the brakes. Soon there were dozens of similar claims of Audis running amok, many with tragic results.

After carefully studying the wrecks, Volkswagen AG, Audi's parent, determined the claims were impossible to prove and insisted drivers were simply stepping on the gas instead of the brake.

Most car experts and magazines such as Car and Driver supported Audi's position, knowing full well that working brakes can always overpower engine torque, even at full throttle. But most major media outlets chose to ignore such basic facts and instead gave front-page treatment to ridiculous theories about sunspots causing the cars to run wild.

Even though Audi was ultimately exonerated, the negative media coverage proved devastating. Sales were so bad in the late 1980s and early 1990s that VW considered pulling the plug in the U.S.

But while VW and Audi officials publicly blamed irresponsible reporting by the media, some admitted privately the auto maker's terrible quality problems made it vulnerable to such accusations.

Early '80s Audis were prone to a litany of catastrophic failures, from faulty transmissions and electronics to disintegrating constant velocity joints. Then there were the bad head gaskets, shorted out windshield wiper motors and leaking brake master cylinders. The list goes on and on, and those were just the problems with my wife's car. She came home so often in a tow truck I thought she was having an affair with the driver.

So let's review Audi's challenges circa 1989:

Its products are declared free of any design defects, but the majority of the car-buying public still thinks Audis are possessed by the devil. "Audi 5000" has become a slang term for doing something unexpectedly fast.

Most current owners hate their cars, if not for repeatedly being stranded by shoddy quality, then because the "sudden acceleration" crisis has made their cars almost worthless.

Any new buyers willing to take a chance on the brand are frightened away by rumors the franchise will be pulled from the U.S.

In comparison, the worst sin GM and Ford currently are guilty of is boring their customers.

Now, once again, Audi looks poised to challenge Mercedes and BMW as an equal. It made its long climb back not with dramatic exterior styling, but by fixing its quality problems, capitalizing on the growing demand for all-wheel drive and offering customers some of the best engines and interiors in the business.

If a brand as severely wounded as Audi can make a full recovery based on solid engineering, great engines and benchmark interiors, then it should not take GM and Ford more than a few years to get their houses in order.

COPYRIGHT 2005 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group

[gigantic]

one of my clients is Larry Webster, the technical editor of Car & Driver magazine, whom i built a very large garage for. I mentioned my lust for the Audi Allroad, & what he thought of it. without pause he said "piece of crap. it's worst car I've tested. the only car in 20 years that has left us stranded at the side of the road." apparently the test car had an alternator failure.
I still think it's a gorgeous car, but that underscores my previous comments about electrical issues. I've got an acquaintance who's an engineer for a firm contracted to Volkswagen. her task: fix their electrical systems!

Lance

[roger albert]

Their electrics (along with VWs) still suck. Just less than they did.
Three friends' experiences with very recent A4s, and couple with VWs pushed me away from an A3 a few months ago.
The old 5000s got a bum rap. Unlike ckcarr, I thought the 4000s sucked too. I owned one for a long time. What a time and money pit. The new ones are definitely better, but they seem to have only moved up the same as the competition over the last 20 years, rather than make any relative improvements, which is not a good plan when you start out so poor. My (at the time) 20 year old chevy did much better than my 14 year old Audi. Todays Chevys, though mostly boring, still are more solid, electrically, than a modern Audi. Too bad, when they work, the Audis are much nicer. One could still be in my future instead of an M3, but they have to improve a lot first.

[ckcarr]

I think people are too hard on the reputation of the tried and true American cars. All makes have problems, but my Sierra pickup is a great vehicle in general (yeah, the engine blew once, but that was my fault). And parts when needed are affordable. My 2001 Jeep Wrangler just turned 100,000 miles and is just fine.

I forgot about those Audi 4000 cars. My sister had one, lots of electrical trouble there. Her and her husband, they were resigned to the fact that the trip to the dealer for repairs was going to cost $1,000 or so every time. They almost were bragging about it, like justifying that a foreign car was worth that for pride of ownership.

I have had both a BMW 325i and 535i and they were great cars.

[95m3ltw]

Originally posted by ckcarr
Nothing to be confused about.

Long ago we had a couple of the infamous Audi 5000 cars. They were a nightmare.

New ones are great I hear, but I'm still gunshy of them.

I think it might be the other way around. The NEW audis are gaining a rep worse than the old ones if you discount the sudden accel. 20/20 bs. I worked on a few 80-85 Audi 5000's back in the day. Good cars compared to what else was available, they just stuck to the CIS injection and GM automatic air con controls too long.

Ask any Audi owner who has exp. the oil sludge problem. Replacement A4 motors cost about as much as the car that requires the replacement. I never would have guessed that VW/Audi products were sub par given the nice interior bits etc but mechanically they can be a nightmare once the warranty runs out. Of the 4-5 boards I frequent, anytime Audi is mentioned many current and X Audi owners chime on about their horrible exp. with them.

Mike

[roger albert]

I don't mind pure CIS so much.
The nasty hybrid platypus CIS-E sucks
(of course, my 4k had that)
All the worst of an elec and a mech system.
PLENTY to go wrong.

[ErricZ]

Originally posted by gigantic
i had an audi 4000 2-door sedan of the same era.
cheers,
Lance

I had an 81 5+5 ... I loved that little car!

[branners]

I was in a conversation with two fairly interesting guys, one a motoring writer and the other a guy who ... well, he designs engines. F1 engines.
Anyway, the writer asks the designer, "which company builds the best engines in the world?" The engineer things for a moment and says, "I cannot tell you in a minute, but what I can say which company builds the worst engines, and that is Volkswagen".
Then he goes into an explanation about why, and how, VW have consistently screwed the pooch in motor design. He was pretty scathing, particularly of the Passat V5 which he described as "an orphan".
A hour or so later, he came back and told us he thought that the best engines across the board were made by Opel. Oh yes, his 3-litre V10s spent a lot of 2005 exploding...