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Hi thank you, I remember about fifteen years ago going to my mates house for a Chinese takeaway, while we were waiting he took me down to his garage to show me the Ducati 998 he had bought, only just over a year old, when I remarked it stank of petrol he replied that he had noticed that but couldn't find the source, so me being fascinated started a small inspection, I soon found the cause due to the slight bubble in the paint on the tank around the stop !Removed! for the fuel which when piped released a small drop of fuel, he had drained the tank while the cold weather was here but the previous owner obviously hadn't and there was a patch of rot inside the tank around the stop !Removed! entry, new tank no paint or decals £1800 paint and decals +£500. so we drained the tank got rid of as much of the rust as possible and coated the area with an epoxy fuel tank repair, two months later he sold the Ducati and bought a BMW R80. Will be staying on the forum, STEVE.

Hi Steve, so sorry to hear of the demise of your Audi in such a bizarre way 😞 but at least no one was injured. Our neighbour had an A6 a few years ago that ended up in the neighbours hedge over the road, same thing....applied the handbrake, went indoors and only found it the next morning. One thing that surprised me was that the alarm had not activated (e.g. movement sensors, etc) when it was merrily rolling down the road or across the forecourt. On the subject of parts, it is not just Audi and cars in general, motorbikes are a leisure industry and therefore replacement bike parts are incredibly extortionate through the manufacturer. Luckily, there are many aftermarket suppliers for spares and can usually find the part at a bargain price through eBay and such like. But 'badge engineering' is rife and makes such as Ducati (who incidentally are owned by Audi, I believe) are off the scale when it comes to parts and servicing. Good luck with your search for a replacement car and it would be great to see you stay in the forums to continue imparting your knowledge to others.

Really sorry to hear of your misfortune Steve, but it seems ‘an ill wind….’. It sounds as if all will be well in the end, and that’s the main thing. Interesting to read about Skoda rather than Audi, if only because virtually all cabs around here were Skoda going back around 10 years. I didn’t realise Skoda parts prices were going to be that much cheaper than Audi, but I used to get all my Audi parts at good prices from a Skoda dealer up the NE, until the supply dried up. It seemed VAG wanted to charge them 2 arms and 2 legs for the computer cross reference listings - making it totally uneconomic! Those who have stuck with VAG for cabs around here, seem to now favour Seat. Has Seat become the cheapest brand in the VAG range? Hope it all works out for you Steve. Good luck and kind regards, Gareth.

Hello all Has anyone gone down the route of total refurbishment and have any idea of the costs involved? I’ve had this blue A4 2.6 since Jan 2002 and it still my daily drive. This old girl has notched up 315000 miles without any rebuilds, just the normal servicing, suspension and bushes. She is tired, looks great but has lost a lot of power, has a leak at the engine/grearbox interface, gear changes are getting clunky but still plods on. The engine uses very little oil and the only rot is a blister at the top of the windscreen possibly from a stone chip. I bought a second car 4 years ago but couldn’t part with the old faithful. I’d love to get her back to up to to decent power and generally have a good freshen up. I’m in the UK, Crewe area and wandered if there’s any specialist or enthusiasts that would have any thoughts of starting points and what can be achieved with part availabilies. Appreciate any advice or help.

I LEAVE MINE IN TFR OVERNIGHT COME UP LIKE NEW AD RATHER TAKE IT OFF LIKE INSTEAD THE SPRAY EGR CLEANER KEV

Hello Steve, A local long standing used car sales always used to say - some many years ago - he would only sell Hyundai and Kia if he could get enough of them. That was when they were cheap. Nothing cheap now! Kind regards, Gareth.

Hi Gareth many thanks, my main gripe with Audi is their myopic refusal to make any part a bit more user friendly price wise and once having got you on the hook quoting at least five days back order, Skoda parts are cheaper but Seat have made their cars cheaper to buy, all the rage down my end are KIA and Hyundai and to be fair second hand the Kia is not to pricey but the parts demand blood money, Having done intensive research in my new free time the Passat is the size I need and a clutch for the 2.0 is around £500 including flywheel the engine is used in the Q3 but quote that when buying parts from Audi the clutches and timing belts double in price, its badge engineering at its worst I would class it as a form of badge racism, as in your case they shut down every avenue of escape, its all about control. I loved the car but should you be prepared to pay over £1500 for the clutch parts, its not a BENTLY. Regards Steve. Steve.

i would drink to that if you both could meet up.lol

Was thinking about how many cars I've owned over the years and it comes to about 25. A large number of these have been VAG cars. Had quite a few old Beetles, T25 and T4 campers and Audis. So the Audis I've owned are :- a nice Mk1 TT 1.8T 225 in black which felt like a pocket rocket post box to drive , a silver A6 C5 saloon 2.5TDi, a blue A6 C5 avant 3.0 petrol which had such a flexible smooth engine and currently I have a low mileage black A6 C6 saloon 2.0TDi which although not very sexy is probably the most fuel friendly car I've ever owned. I try to do a lot of the maintenance myself, regular servicing of fluids, filters and brakes. I also have a go at fixing the odd niggly things that go wrong now and again, which leads me to why I've been searching these forums over the last few days. The front wipers on my current A6 C6 abruptly stopped working mid wipe. So I've been diagnosing where the problem seems to be and trying to work out how to fix. Will check out the forums on here and see if I can find the appropriate topic.

Hello Neal, I can now see that your earlier post about a performance back box - which Steve indicated would cost you £500/£600 - was relating to this same non-running car. Without wishing to be over critical, but you are talking about ‘toys’ on a 19 year old non-running vehicle, when to get it running is likely to cost you in excess of its worth. Personally, I find all of this to be worrying, yet we will aim to offer advice as best we can, as you attempt to progress with this. To me, it smacks of money no object, but….. Please bear in mind that this is my personal view and may/may not be shared with with all on here. Kind regards, Gareth.

Hi gents, Sunday I was half way through my shift when I pulled in to get some diesel at my local BP I filled the car up went round to the drivers door to get some money out of my change dispenser then closed the door locked it and went to pay, got my receipt and trolled off to use the loo, when I came out the whole forecourt was going garraty and the car was gone, apparently the car had rolled off on its own down the ramp and across the road into a wall/hedge on the other side, the handbrake had failed to hold and let go when I got in the passenger seat the handbrake activation light was on, been driving me mad to find the reason, the pads and discs were renewed in august plenty left on pads and discs, went on the net and found a couple of people who had the same thing with A6 Avant all within the build dates 2011-2018 both manuals both garage forecourts, today they wrote the car off, sad it happened but in a way glad of the end result as over the last couple of years I have become thoroughly disillusioned with the company over the eyewaterinw price of the parts and the lack of availability of parts, look at the adblue pipe fiasco which ranged from they don't make them anymore to they are waiting to find a new supplier, on a seven year old car, really, my clutch needed replacing so we had £160 slave cylinder £300 for the pressure plate and driven plate, new seals £50 and £800 for the flywheel all + vat, you can't get any of the parts even though they are now available through aftermarket as Shaeffler reckon they don't have them to supply the aftermarket suppliers but the dealers have loads at twice the price, funny that, then we come to the pipes some of which you can only get from the dealers I was about to fork out for another feed pipe from the clutch master cylinder to the slave cylinder, two and a half feet at most £160 all in, then we have their labour charges, its not the car I loved it, its the totally corrupt profiteering that lies behind it I think they are trying to push us literally into buying the new Hybrid/electric models then they can have a field day with everyones wallet, my neighbours 15 plate A4 got hit by another neighbour which dented the door so it needs a new door they told her today they are writing it off because they can't get a new door for eight months and the repair plus the courtesy car rental will come to over £10000, its all premium brand mythology with premium prices, if you look back to the seventies Audis were very cheap to try and get a foothold in the British market and they were very good cars but no one was queuing to buy them, they marketed them on an affordable alternative to cars like the Granada,Vauxhall Viscount, Rover, they seem to have lost their way with the statement that they only want to produce cars for the premium market, people with loads of money, me I am glad I am out my next cab will be a Skoda/Passat the parts oe are half the price and plentiful which is what I need, I will stay on the forum as I have a reasonable knowledge of Diesel/Petrol Audis but I wont be going back to own another one. Steve.