Saturday, January 24, 2009

My Audi is Gone




My wife took the kids and the dog to her mother's house in Florida for the week after Christmas.  I didn't want that many miles put on the car because it was getting very close to the scheduled maintenance for timing belt replacement. Unfortunately, she didn't know that.  On the way home the car overheated in Georgia.  They were stuck 700 miles from home.  After a lot of drama the car was towed to an Audi dealer in Charleston and the family rented a Uhaul truck to get home (because one-way car rentals required a trip to the airport and the Uhaul was cheaper).  The diagnosis was a water pump failure (which is driven by the timing but and also replaced during timing belt job) which stripped the teeth off the timing belt - now the cams and valves aren't moving so they collided with the pistons.  Result is a completely destroyed engine.  A new engine and labor would have cost several times the value of the car so I sold it, especially with me stuck here in Africa.  The car got posted on Craig's list and several Audi forums.  I was surprised at how much interest it received and it was sold at a reasonable price within 1 day.  In the end the mileage on the odometer was still 900 miles shy of the scheduled maintenance but I guess I should have done it early.  Pictured is the car when new in December 1999 and then its last day.  Big disasters have to happen when I'm on deployment of course.  Audi, I hope your new owner enjoys you as much as I did all those years.

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