Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Audi: A nice ride with a hefty price tag

I own a 2004 Audi A6 Quattro with a 3.0 liter engine. I've had it for about 2.5 years. I like the car, it looks nice, drives well and is comfortable. But it is also expensive. It now has 72,000 miles on it and when I purchased it, the mileage was around 40,000. It has been into the dealership numerous times since then with expensive repairs. The most recent was last January when I blew a valve cover gasket. I had it towed to the dealership and for around $2,000, they replaced the valve covers. I felt as though I dodged a bullet since I thought I was lucky to have not completely seized the motor.

A few months later, I'm at the dealer getting recall work performed. The sales guy comes out and tells me that my valve covers are leaking. After informing him that I recently spent $2,000 having them repaired, he agreed to do the job over, correctly this time.

Since that time, I've had intermittent problems. The engine light comes on and stays on for sometimes days or weeks at a time, then mysteriously goes out like everything is normal. But more recently, it has been misfiring when cold. The misfire goes away after 10-15 seconds and everything seems fine again. Well, a few months ago I had to add anti-freeze to its 'sealed' cooling system. That's not supposed to happen. Ive added coolant three times since then and even had to add a half quart of oil although it was 9,000 miles since my last oil change. I've never had to add oil either.

So I finally broke down and brought it back to Carousel Audi in Minneapolis. The sales guy cals me and tells me that either my head gasket is leaking or the engine block is cracked and anti-freeze can be seen dripping into a cylinder when they inserted a camera. Head gasket estimate is just a hair under $2,000. The engine block estimate is $10,300! The car is probably only worth about $14,000! The sales guy doesn't want to make a recommendation because if I do the less expensive head gasket repair, it might not solve the problem and then I'm still on the hook for another $10,300 to replace the block.

I pick the car up in disgust and don't know what I'm going to do yet. Then I call an independent repair shop that I had been referred to months earlier. We talk and after explaining the diagnosis, he tells me that particular motor is terrible and not designed to last more than 100,000 miles. There is a design flaw where Audi inserted screws into the heads and they will eventually give out. Audi only used that motor for 18 months before scrapping it but he can do a permanent fix for about $1,500. If the problem is not the head gaskets, he can weld the block crack if it exists.

I'm talking with my brother the next day telling him about it and he says that his mechanic told him the exact same thing about the motor. He has a similar car with the same engine and is currently in the process of dumping it.

I bring my car to the mechanic to have the motor fixed and decided to ask, "Would simply adding radiator sealant ruin anything?"

"No, and it might stop the leak and solve your leaking problem but you still have a motor that is going to break in about 20,000 miles."

I told him to add the sealant, tighten the screws on the heads and change the oil. $240 later it appears that the leak has been stopped and the car is operating as designed.

Time to put it up for sale.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Yahoo Mail failure

My Yahoo Mail inbox suddenly became empty a couple of weeks ago. I lost between one and two hundred unfiled emails in my inbox. I had read everything (I think) but had appointments with people I hadn't met that I didn't have contact info for other than in the email exchanges.

When I realized my inbox was gone, I went into Yahoo help. There was a message re-assuring me their engineers were working on the problem. Whew! But I dug deeper and found an email restore option to go back up to 24 hours. I did this. Then waited. Either my restore request would come through or their engineers would make the world normal again.

Anyway, after numerous Live Chats and emails with their CSR's, Techs and engineers, I'm out an Inbox with no chance of ever getting it back. Once I accept this horrible reality, I start to ask questions to determine if I need to move to gmail to be assured of this problem never negatively affecting me again.

I ask: "Was this widespread? What caused it? What are you doing to ensure it doesn't happen again?"

The only partial answer was, "No, it was not widespread."

I then followed up with, "What do you consider 'widespread'? Only me? A few hundred? Thousands or more?"

No answer.

Then the Live Chat stops. I keep my window open and still nothing. After a few minutes I type, "Are you still there?"

No response.

Several more minutes pass and I type, "Hello?"

Still nothing.


The I get a follow up email. We go through the situation from the beginning and fairly quickly determine there is no hope of me getting my messages back so I start asking questions again. I re-iterated my three questions and received a diversionary question in response. I answer and ask the three questions again with a note indicating that I would tell everyone I know if they are unwilling or unable to address my questions.

I never received a response.

Since that time, I subsequently lost all of my Yahoo email contacts BUT was able to retrieve some.  Not sure how that happened either.

My advice: If you want reliable email, DO NOT USE YAHOO! MAIL.