How rubbish are Audi now...

[John.]

On motorway today, passed 1 year old Audi RS3 saloon broken down on hard shoulder, man stood on banking with baby in arms and wife. I can only imagine the conversation he must have been having. Something along the lines of 'you paid £40,000 for this thing?!'

Could be as simple as a puncture.......comes with a "tyre mobility kit"
Makes you wonder what you get for 40k?

[Tridac]

What i've read here is shocking, but familiar. Japanese companies pioneered the process decades ago. Start by building a high quality product at a good price, gain a fantastic reputation and following. Then, after some years, it's payback time, with everything cost engineered down to just good enough quality, rather than built to last and at least a nod to pursuit of excellence.

I still think the the 80's into the 90's Audis were the best engineered, with the average home mechanic able to fault find and take on most maintenance tasks. Fast forward to the latest models, and any significant fault will need the full kit of plugin tools to find it. I work in electronics, but current vehicles have far too much reliance on it, gadgets and stuff I really don't need in a car. Much of it is of dubious engineering quality, consumer quality electronics and parts. I know some of it is needed to meet regs, but any engineer can tell you that the greater the number of parts in a product, the less reliable, statistically, it becomes overall. The way that aerospace gets round that problem is through rigid process applied to every aspect of the design, materials and implemenation, but cars are basically a consumer product, with similar design constraints. There really is nothing simpler than a pair of twin Webers and points ingnition, or a mechanical diesel injection pump.

No easy solution, as models like the TTrs look seriously attractive, but for now, the S2 works fine and I can fix it when it breaks, probably indefinately...

[junkeravant]

Here in the States Audi is making money....

from fools who have no idea about the history of Audi or it's racing heritage. Nor do they even care if they have numerous LeMans wins to their names. They only want to be seen as afficionados of good European cars. To these people "Quattro" is just a chic name to tell their friends. The dealers in the States have the golden goose and thrive on it. But when real fans of the marque show up...we are treated like "Red Headed" children and shooed away. We are given the door by the service people and the parts people look upon us as nothing less than something to wipe their feet of. The Audi fan-sites on the net are but "Pains in the ***" to the Audi dealerships and often new owners are told to stay away from "the idiots" who live in a fantasy land on the websites. Audi is shooting themselves in the foot and they will lose what ever fans they have left in the States. Those who buy their cars will soon realize the folly of their ways and look to the up and coming Korean brands along with the new models coming out of Detroit. Audi will become a second class European marque again....behind BMW and Benz.

[1781cc]

I can fix it when it breaks, probably indefinately...

Good luck finding parts indefinitely - Audi don't even seem to want to support their older cars much anymore!

[montyrs2]

Just remember chaps it's all about the money.

Audi like all other brands get parts made by the cheapest bidder to build cars that they sell for the highest price with the best looking finance package.

For every buyer who cares about their car or notices stuff that is wrong there are 20 buyers who don't notice or care and simply hand the car back after 3 years for another one.

Cars are built on the production line as fast as possible by people paid as little as possible so there will always be lemons.

[Audi J]

well said monty

[Tridac]

1781cc:

Well how many, other than museums, could afford Audi Tradition prices (or whatever they are called now), which are completely over the top ?. Completely out of touch, take it or leave it arrogant attitude and no concession whatsoever to the concept of working with enthusiasts and restorers to maintain the historical record. Just f$ck off greed an a grand scale, but all too typical.

As for spares, people are already buying them to break and sell for parts, but I guess we should be grateful for that and common parts bin items, but many parts are already unobtanium...

[Tridac]

junkeravant:

In a way, i'm grateful for all those well heeled people who buy new Audi and I don't care if all they worry about is the paint colour or trim. It's those people who are willing to spend over the odds that funds R&D and makes tech advances available to people like me, who will never buy any car new.

As a bit of a sad tech geek, analysing why I like the brand, at least in the past, they were technically innovative. They had things like autocheck in 1980 or earlier, unheard of elsewhere. Quattro speaks for itself, but strange how both BMW and Merc have suddenly discovered it's advantages and are pushing it hard in the ads. BMW may have had awd years ago, but they never pushed it at the time. Even an M series is just a warmed over engine in boring saloon body. Merc of course are arguably the most anodyne cars on the planet and they have had serious reliability problems in the past few years.

So, much as I dislike some of the business practices, i still respect innovative engineering design and even better when it's coupled with a bit of artistic flair, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. The long term future is electric though. It's the only way to solve the polluted cities problem. The European brands will be overtaken by a rising far east if they don't get their act together. Good article in Der Speigel about that, here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...a-1123436.html