Re: OPINION WANTED : Audi as a "consumer" vehicle (long)

[Andrei Talalaevskii <andrei@felix.physics.sunysb.edu>]

Some extra expences from having quattro not mentioned yet are more boots
to tear (4 more CV boots, 2 more ball-joint boots and 2 more tie-rod
boots). Replacing a CV boot is not much money but it takes work.
Replacing boots on ball-joints and tie-rods results in more costs. As
far as I know these boots are NOT sold anywhere separately (please
correct me if I am wrong here. I just spent much effort and could not
find boots sold separately)). If we could get just a boot instead of a
torn one, we could have put it on without taking the ball-joint and
tie-rod of the car and thus keeping wheel alignment intact. Since a torn
boot requires to change the whole part, the cost of wheel alignment
should be added. The way around is to buy a new part, take a boot from
it, put it on the old part and keep driving, but still the cost of a
balljoint is about $25 and the rear tie-rod ends are not sold separately
either. Not mentioning how stupid it is to strip a good new part making
it virtually useless.

another Andrei...