peng

The first new car my wife and I ever bought was my '00 A4. We had been married five years and had both driven older cars with 100k+ miles. I was in graduate school, then we wanted to buy a house, and we wanted to save money so buying cars was not a high priority. Also, I don't believe in going into debt for cars (or most anything for that fact, but thats a whole different forum) so we were saving money to pay cash. Well it was finally time to replace my car and we decided we could afford something that we liked. We would rather spend $25000 for a car we were excited about than $20000 for something that didn't excite us. After looking around we decided on the Audi. Well while we were looking I discovered AudiWorld and have read it ever since. The problem was that given the waiting, it being our first car, etc. I was already over-protective of the car and worried about making sure it was taken care of properly. (I wanted it to be perfect, and stay perfect.) Reading AudiWorld just made this worse. Not only did I become more fanatical, I would hear about problems that others had and start looking for them. As a consequence, I would have my dealer fix/look for the slightest rattle. In retrospect, I'm sure I complained about things that were normal, roadnoise, or imagined noises. As a consequence, not only did I lower my ownership enjoyment I actually did some harm to the car. Namely, I learned that in my attempts to make perfect, that the dealer took things apart that never are quite the same afterwards. For example, the trip computer had to be replaced for legit reasons (it randomly reset itself, display sometimes went off etc.) I noticed afterwards that over bumpy roads, the clear plastic cover over all the instruments would rattle against the stalk that is used in gen1 cars to reset the trip odometer. I brought the car in to have it fixed. Well, they fixed it but it came back with a vengence. I finally faced facts that trying to fix it was just making it worse.

Well, we recently (about a month ago) received our second new car (a 2002 A4 Avant) for my wife. This time I'm actually not looking for the fan control module problem, don't notice that the center console bothers me, etc. etc. I don't obsess about checking the paint every evening (I still park both my cars in "protected" spots or away from other cars). In all I'm happy owner. It may just be that the Avant is better built or something, but I doubt it.

From my perspective, while everyone still considers me a fanatic about my cars, I have discovered that being a little bit more layed back makes for a happier fanatisism (sp?).

formerly dennisA4

Wow, i thougth i had mental problems. =)

Ralphie

Ya... what a wierdo! =)

Oaktree

I can feel your pain. I am glad you are in a better place now

April

The relationship you are building with the car, helps you to overlook flaws:-)