What is an Allroad and why can't even McGuyver keep one running?
 

Blame it on the electronics.

Blame it on the fact that you need more than a paperclip to fix a car.

Check out the timing chain:
https://i.imgur.com/XLnX99g.png

Legend says the timing chain tensioners are plastic.

Ahhh Audi. This is why I don't buy your cars.

What advantage does this spaghetti system offer over a good old Mazda timing chain, for instance.

https://static.cargurus.com/images/s...1600x1200.jpeg

Or even simpler, a nice Toyota:

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o...e.jpg~original

Sometimes I wonder why would Audi develop its own wide-angle V6 instead of simply resorting to the VR6. Or simply keeping the straight-5.

Fat?! My wife got her picture taken with Richard Dean Anderson earlier this year. He's leaned out quite a bit since then...he looks good.

Don't even get me started on VW stuff. The two 2000 VWs my parents had occupied both extremes of the reliability spectrum. But from what I gather, a "reliable VW" is usually an oxymoron.

I wonder if old Volkswagens are still more reliable than new ones.

At least the old-school air-cooled and the EA827-powered Volkswagens used to be praised for their reliability.

My current VW has had no issues. I'm still not keeping it out of warranty.

I usually say the problem with Volkswagen is its owners who seem to expect the newer ones to stand to abuse and neglect much like a Beetle or a Dasher would do. Well, considering that Volkswagen still has a strong foothold in my POS of a home country with its harsh road and environmental conditions, it may not be so unreliable at all.

Dashboard-light's data has much to say on the topic:

http://www.dashboard-light.com/vehic...swagen.png?v=4

Just as an example, Honda/Acura lost a lot of points for selling an Isuzu on their lots for a while, and for the disaster that was their V6 automatic transmission during the early 2000's. How the crap did VW/Audi get a score like that?

I was under the impression older Beetles weren't particularly reliable, at least when you look at life expetancy. Sure, there weren't a ton of poorly built parts to fail, but how many 1500sp's (just as an example) are still high compression, burning zero oil and have needed no appreciable maintenance after 250,000 miles, as is common among modern engines? The plus side is (again, to my limited knowledge) that they're stupidly simple, easy, and inexpensive to fix.

How in the world is Hummer between Toyota\Lexus and Scion?!

Then Porsche.

This is a crazy world.

Science!

Apparently the H2 and Boxter are/were just well put-together vehicles, which had few problems that would take them off the road. Electrical gremlins maybe, but nothing that would require a tow.

IIRC in my country most of them were still fitted with that 8-valve 2.0L which is basically a crossflow version of the EA827. And exactly due to it being simple, easy and inexpensive to fix and mod it's still one of the most popular engine among drag and street racers in my POS of a country. Instead of a small-block Chevy, the first option of many local street racers is an EA827 with a turbo.

Being easy to fix does not make them reliable, at least in my book. Cheap and attractive to own, sure. ;)

Older VW engines were frequently praised for being more reliable than their modern counterparts, plus being cheap and easy to fix. And you know, being able to fix something quickly with unimproved tools and other limited resources is a valuable asset for commercial operators, farmers who live considerably far from authorized service, or slumdogs who replace an MPFI setup with a 150cc motorcycle carburettor (which in Brazil and Argentina is not unheard of).

I really can't speak to the Hummers, but I know that a lot of Porsche owners are fairly fanatical about routine maintenance. Early Cayennes were a disaster, but the consensus I hear is that while preventive maintenance on Porsches is expensive, rarely does anything just break or leave you stranded.

Maybe the rest of VAG should take a page or two from Porsche's book.

Since they can afford to have it done the right way, well, at least the first owners, it might sum up for the reliability of their rides. Used ones on the other hand, when their price decreases a lot exactly due to the high cost of maintenance, end up attracting some folks who only want to show off and brag about how smart they think they are for paying the cost of an average new econobox for a rich man's surplus.

If you can afford a used Porsche and the aforementioned maintenance - especially a Boxster or Cayman - I could think of worse things to buy. Good indie mechanics exist, too.

Sure. But you know, a sports car is more of an impulsive buy than a rational one, so a mistake doesn't seem so unlikely to happen.


Some of the best mechanics I ever met were independent ones.

Enthusiasts take a lot of time to buy their cars. It might be more accurate to say that sports cars are emotional buys rather than logical buys, and I regard both as rational.

Independents can very often be the best! It's hard to know, though, except by choosing one and seeing by dumb luck how it goes. So far I have been lucky in being able to take care of most of my maintenance, but there's a timing belt lurking for the Hondizzle, so I'll have to make a choice at some point.

How many sports cars are bought during mid-life crises? How much planning is generally done during that period? :)

When mine comes, I'll let you know :D

At least in a poor country such as mine, I'm sure the overwhelming majority of the high-end sports cars are bought during mid-life crises. Viagra was presumably cheaper...


Sure, without some good financial planning it would be somewhat harder to have the stability required to invest in such expensive hobbies.

I wonder why warp drive goes offline so often, and why transporter technology seems to be so shoddy in the 23rd century?

In fact, why can't a lost crewman be re constituted from transporter records?

Lazy writing.

I stand corrected. Temperamental technology is a plot device.

Someone posted the meme in #1 again and somebody said that Anderson had recently broken his leg, and was suffering from medication side effects.

There were some good MacGyver and Stargate references.

Another issue for VW and German cars in general is that the manufacturers expect owners to follow the maintenance schedule religiously. The Germans also spec European oils and fluids that are more expensive than the common fluids used in US and Asian brands.

Then a VW owner goes to the quick lube and gets the oil changed with cheap bulk conventional 10W-30 and wonders why the turbo fails.

Earlier VWs were seen as more dumb-proof and some buyers of newer models are still influenced by family traditions, but even no-frills models catering to the Latin America such as the Gol have had some trouble with oil specs in recent years.


No wonder some Brazilian-made models which are available locally with TSI engines are available on some regional export markets only with the 1.6 MSI naturally-aspirated engine, such as the current-generation Polo, the T-Cross and the Virtus.

The cheapest oil I could find that meets VW's 507.00 spec is

Valvoline - 881167-CS European Vehicle Full Synthetic XL-III SAE 5W-30 Motor Oil

Purchased in bulk (3 x 5qt containers) it was $90 ($6 a quart). A basic 5W-30 synthetic blend is about $12-15 for a 5 QT bottle ($2.50 a quart)

How much does it cost to properly maintain a German car overall? Is the oil change indicative?

There are tons of kinds of oil, and they're all different. The fewer vehicles in your market that take that exact oil, the more expensive it's going to be. Synthetic will be more expensive, and rare synthetic will be even higher.

My dad likes to lease Audis. He had a light out once and he asked the writer how much the whole job would have cost him if it hadn't been covered. The writer just laughed at him.

I do recall peanut bulbs (194/168 and what have you) on a BMW not being replacable, instead being hard wired into the body wiring harness. Not one I had to deal with, but the shop that called me was complaining about the last car he had to deal with.

To just do the schedule maintenance it isn't much different. The oil is expensive but the change interval is 10K miles. A comparison for the last two cars I've owned for an extended period of time:

2003 VW Jetta TDI 0 - 120K $2,751
2005 Toyota Prius 0 - 120K = $1,572

The big difference there is that I paid a mechanic to do the timing belt change on the TDI @ 100K miles which cost $1232. The Prius has a timing chain and I did all the work myself.


The problem is that plenty of people just won't pay the extra $30 to use the proper oil in the VW.

Then there are the people that are loyal to a brand of oil. "I've used Castrol GTX 10W-30 for 30 years on all my cars ....." You see this even with fleets that are running thousands of vehicle. The vast majority of US trucking fleets still run their semis on 15W-50 CK-4 oil instead of the 10W-30 FA-4 oil recommended by the manufacturer.

So, German cars are reasonable as long as you invest in regular maintenance.

What about Fiats? :D

The only German car I've owned a long time was that 2003 TDI. I sold it after 10 years / 245K miles to a friend of the family. It is still running today

After about 200K miles stuff on the interior started breaking - pretty common for any car that has been heat cycling in the Alabama sun for years.

My brother had similar luck with a Jetta sedan TDI of the same vintage.


My 2014 Jetta Sportwagen is too young to have issues. To date the only repair was the sunroof seal - replaced under CPO warranty. (I hate sunroofs)

Dutch summers must be brutal too then as the interior of my '86 Deasel single cam Rabbit started crumbling like crazy in just, err, 18 years...
By then it had 390.000 km on the odo, and I switched off the engine before rolling to a stop so I would not have to exit the car in a cloud of black smoke.
Then a fairy coughed on the front bumper, and everything caved in like a soufflé in a hail storm. The headlights were facing each other.
I pulled it back in shape with my bare hands, then drove it to the wrecking yard well aware that the crumpling zone actually started at my ankles.

The VW was the worst car I ever owned by a margin, even though it got the highest mileage. But the stories... I once got it jump started by two policemen. By the time it finally ran they were sweating and cursing.
That sloshing sound in the boot, fuel? No, window wiper fluid. It had a big tank under the bonnet and it emptied itself rather quickly - into the boot...
I did not know whether it was green or black when I first saw it. It was my then girlfriend's car, she drove it for 1500 km a year - a diesel, mind you - and obviously never ever washed it. When I did it turned out to be white. We're married now and the Rabbit is gone. Life is good ;)

Fiat is quite underrated in most Latin American markets, where models such as the Strada became more relevant after being rebranded as RAM 700. You might know Brazil has some of the harshest road conditions, and there is a lot of Fiats all around the country. Ultimately the Fiat Uno turned out to be as popular as the Beetle used to be in rural areas.