To My Friend Dave-

The idea for the poll was AutoWeek's magazine supplement and I thought that there might be some interesting opinions. I even thought that YOU might have some opinions on their racing days. End of story.

I was wondering why you hadn't posted. I had to start the poll on one end of the love 'em/ hate 'em spectrum...sorry that you don't like my choice As you can see from the comments, there are a lot of folks with bad stories....mostly from the past. I was surprised with the number of "lemon" votes....thinking that mine might be the only one.

I'm glad that you have a good one in your A6. Maybe you are the one that needs to get over it. It's just a stinkin' Internet poll... and you have a place to vote: "More complex answer....see my post"

 

Just pulling your chain Jerry. No hard feelings my friend. I knew you were thinking of me when you posted it. That's why I posted the friendly wave at the end..... But we could stir things up..nah, probably not a good idea.

I agree, Audi's historical rep for quality is shaky. Even with my trouble-free car I did buy their Extended Warranty which just went into effect, mainly due the potential pain of trying to fix any of the potential high-tech stuff that might fail over time. I normally am dead set against buying warranties but I did so on the S2000 as well that has now expired. Hopefully, I will never have to use the Audi's either.

 

[QUOTE=dlq04,Dec 4 2009, 01:18 AM] Jerry,

First off, get over it..... that was 1972. Let it go. Nothing was reliable that year, not even Honda. I had one of their gas tank filler tubes rust out. CAABOOM, if you were a smoker.

 

Last night, at the LA Auto Show "Sneak Preview," I sat in a (red) Audi R8 Roadster. I REALLY liked that car! It looks much better than the spy photos shown on the internet, and I like that they got rid of the wide, cabon fiber panel at the side air intakes. It has a soft top, and looks good top up or top down.

Patty took some photos of me sitting in it, so hopefully she'll post some later. Otherwise, the show had no real surprises. The Honda Crosstour... (IMO), and no CR-Z to check out. The Porsche Boxter Spyder was pretty nice, and of course Lexus had the FA on display, and there were some nice Aston Martins. Ferrari and Lambo pulled out of the show for some reason.

So...I might change my mind about ever owning an Audi...hmmm...R8 Roadster (in my dreams).

 

Now we have come full circle with the current Toyota "sudden acceleration" recall. Here is the most recent theory: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyo...0,5254584.story. Seems drivers have problem stopping cars that suddenly surge to high speeds, even if the driver is a trained highway patrol officer. Other drivers have reported that ALL floor mats were removed from their cars and they still experience sudden accelerations. Also reported was stomping on the brakes would not stop a run-away car. And yes, we do own one of the Toyotas that is being "recalled", but we have not experienced any problems... yet.

 

My German sister calls Audis Rowdies; meaning the drivers rather than the cars. She says they are the worst drivers by far. She said she would own one, if it wasn't for the image.

 

The Audi 5000 had mechanical throttle linkage, not drive-by-wire. Also, the incidents involved "unintended acceleration" from a standing stop. Since there was no kinetic energy for the brakes to absorb, the brakes would overwhelm the engine power forever. No production car of that era had enough power to overcome the brakes from a standing stop. If you're rolling, it would be different.

As for the highly-publicized CHP incident, I find it hard to believe that there was time to make a 911 call (did they think the welfare state would send a helicopter out to lower a rope and rescue them?) but not time to either turn the ignition switch off (car slows without damage but is hard to steer) or to shift into neutral (probable engine damage, but they walk away from the incident.) Unless they were already driving 120 mph when the throttle malfunctioned, they could have done either action at a much lower speed. Even at speed, the brakes will slow the car for a while against full throttle.

Note that the 911 operator suggested that they "turn the vehicle off" to no avail. The CHP officer may have been highly trained, but obviously had no clue how to react to a runaway vehicle.

 

Dave,

My wife has owned an A3 for 3 years and loves it. Service has been great on the pre-paid routine maintenance; they replace a rattling cat under warranty, no problems at all. That's the only issue we've had with the car.

I do find the old-school cartridge oil filter, rather than a spin-on filter, a bit odd but I owned small-block Chevy engines with these back in the day.

The paint job on the A3 puts both of my Honda vehicles to shame, but that may be more a function of date of manufacture than manufacturer.

 

WOW. Jerry had a numerical error in his original post.
And then he tried to change it!?!

MAYBE JERRY SHOULD THINK TWICE BEFORE POINTING OUT OUR TYPOS?

 

I'm Chairman of the Michigan Rowdies (our MGA club), so it fits!!!!