To all I bid thee farewell...
11-23-2004, 03:17 PM
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To all I bid thee farewell...
As Dylan once said, he hated saying goodbye, so he just says "fair thee well".
After much musing (and moving to a two car scenario), i realized that as a daily driver in my world (which sees blinding speeds of 35mph on my commute), my S4 sits for 10 hours a day 5 days a week at the office, subject to door dings and the elements (including geese doing their mess), and another 7*8=56 hours it sits in my garage while I sleep, at 90K it isn't worth it anymore to keep it maintained and deal with the growing number of bs issues that old s4s get (ie: rocking seats, glovebox and sunroof rattle, sensors, abs, 0w40 oil changes, etc.) for a commute (1-2-3-2-3-2-1 shifting constantly for 30 minutes 2x a day)I am certain the car hates doing.
Officially, today is my last night of ownership of the S, to be replaced by a new daily, a loaded black magic 2005 jetta gli 6-spd I am picking up tommorrow morning with the S4 as trade.
The car was a pleasure to own and drive, and still is the best car in so many realms. The maintenance sucked and ended up on the average being more per year than 6months of loan payments.
For $800/month the new S4 in form and fuinction doesn't do it for me and as I told the dealer, I wish there was a button to push to reset my S4 to day one of 2000, and I would take it back up to 90K again...
All of you (Piggy and the Pen, Bullocks, Mark and the rest of you lot) have made ownership a close family of power one up manship and unbelievable troubleshooting skills (2X AW had my problem pinpointed before the dealer go this head of his A$$).
For those of you that care here was the last out of warranty numbers- from 55K miles-90.2K miles, the car was $10607.24 of loan payments, averaged 20.8mpg, required $4,278 of routine and non routine maintenance, and consumed $4,694.71 of 93 octane gas in the past 20 months. It basically cost $20K to drive the car from its value out of warranty of about $25K to $15.5K, or $32.36/day (if my math was right). Interestingly however, on trade I go the remainder of the note +$175.00.
I will occassionally stop in to read the news and hope to stay in touch with all of you I have met, but the next Audi I will own will never be what we all have. Enjoy every minute of that car that several thousand of us had/have the privilege to own and drive, because all things aside the S4 (when maintained by someone with the skills of the Piggy) will never be uped by anything within 15K of our pricetags. I got out of mine as more of a compromise than a desire, but losing confidence in the reliability of one's car is the last thing you need when it gets you to the job two counties over 5 times a week to pay for it...
All the best and should you ever be in Milwaukee or Amsterdam where I spend the majority of my free time and working days, or raging on Xbox, look me up.
Life is too short not to own an S4 once in your life, even if the depreciation and out of warranty portion was not so fun...
So to all, fair thee well.
After much musing (and moving to a two car scenario), i realized that as a daily driver in my world (which sees blinding speeds of 35mph on my commute), my S4 sits for 10 hours a day 5 days a week at the office, subject to door dings and the elements (including geese doing their mess), and another 7*8=56 hours it sits in my garage while I sleep, at 90K it isn't worth it anymore to keep it maintained and deal with the growing number of bs issues that old s4s get (ie: rocking seats, glovebox and sunroof rattle, sensors, abs, 0w40 oil changes, etc.) for a commute (1-2-3-2-3-2-1 shifting constantly for 30 minutes 2x a day)I am certain the car hates doing.
Officially, today is my last night of ownership of the S, to be replaced by a new daily, a loaded black magic 2005 jetta gli 6-spd I am picking up tommorrow morning with the S4 as trade.
The car was a pleasure to own and drive, and still is the best car in so many realms. The maintenance sucked and ended up on the average being more per year than 6months of loan payments.
For $800/month the new S4 in form and fuinction doesn't do it for me and as I told the dealer, I wish there was a button to push to reset my S4 to day one of 2000, and I would take it back up to 90K again...
All of you (Piggy and the Pen, Bullocks, Mark and the rest of you lot) have made ownership a close family of power one up manship and unbelievable troubleshooting skills (2X AW had my problem pinpointed before the dealer go this head of his A$$).
For those of you that care here was the last out of warranty numbers- from 55K miles-90.2K miles, the car was $10607.24 of loan payments, averaged 20.8mpg, required $4,278 of routine and non routine maintenance, and consumed $4,694.71 of 93 octane gas in the past 20 months. It basically cost $20K to drive the car from its value out of warranty of about $25K to $15.5K, or $32.36/day (if my math was right). Interestingly however, on trade I go the remainder of the note +$175.00.
I will occassionally stop in to read the news and hope to stay in touch with all of you I have met, but the next Audi I will own will never be what we all have. Enjoy every minute of that car that several thousand of us had/have the privilege to own and drive, because all things aside the S4 (when maintained by someone with the skills of the Piggy) will never be uped by anything within 15K of our pricetags. I got out of mine as more of a compromise than a desire, but losing confidence in the reliability of one's car is the last thing you need when it gets you to the job two counties over 5 times a week to pay for it...
All the best and should you ever be in Milwaukee or Amsterdam where I spend the majority of my free time and working days, or raging on Xbox, look me up.
Life is too short not to own an S4 once in your life, even if the depreciation and out of warranty portion was not so fun...
So to all, fair thee well.
