Distributor autozone sucks compared to motorcraft?

revhead347 said:

My little brother had a VW. Constantly needed repairs. I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Kurt

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Maybe Audis can’t be trusted to drive over 50 miles w/o having a spare ecu in the trunk?

Uhh wait…

Maybe it’s VW’s?

Maybe because they’re the same car,…

Maybe both?

Working where I work has taught me one thing. That one thing is that all newer cars suck. If you're lucky to have one, that hasn't given any issues with over 100k, pat yourself on the back. You've done something right. My mustang service plan said it needed a decarb intake cleaning every 15k....some said 30k. All the direct injection cars build heavy carbon on the valves. Certain driving styles can reduce it. Type and grade fuel helps some. Type of oil helps...but eventually they will all hang valves if not cleaned.

Vw and Audi are the worse...followed by BMW / Mini. Chevy is right behind them all and should come with spare intake and exhaust variable valve timing solenoids, but they don't. The Chrysler products are plagued with TIPM issues, transmission problems, and charging system problems. Let's not forget how they left casting sand in the cooling systems. Subaru has problems with the high pressure fuel pumps eating themselves....but they don't come with spare pumps and camshafts in the trunk.

Mike knows this about BMW but he's in denial. They still don't require you to travel with an ECU or Vanos solenoid. They don't even require you to have a sand blaster loaded with walnut shells ( even though I recommend it ).

I carry a tool kit, water, multimeter, test light, a couple bulbs, and a cell phone when I take my car out. The bulbs are there just because it's really a given that one will eventually blow. There used to be TFI modules and all types of stuff I used to carry in my other cars. One of them liked eating clutch cables so I kept a spare in the trunk. Unless I have a repetitive issue I won't be carrying spare parts anymore.

I disagree that it’s one in a million

We have 2017 VW GTI. it’s needed only oil changes and tires. 85k mikes.

revhead347 said:

One in a million. Might want to consider buying a lottery ticket.

Kurt

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Now there’s an idea. If I win the lottery, I can hire a tow truck to follow me around everywhere, since I don’t trust my car. That way I don’t have to sell my car, or carry spare parts. Win win win

90sickfox said:

Working where I work has taught me one thing. That one thing is that all newer cars suck. If you're lucky to have one, that hasn't given any issues with over 100k, pat yourself on the back. You've done something right. My mustang service plan said it needed a decarb intake cleaning every 15k....some said 30k. All the direct injection cars build heavy carbon on the valves. Certain driving styles can reduce it. Type and grade fuel helps some. Type of oil helps...but eventually they will all hang valves if not cleaned.

Vw and Audi are the worse...followed by BMW / Mini. Chevy is right behind them all and should come with spare intake and exhaust variable valve timing solenoids, but they don't. The Chrysler products are plagued with TIPM issues, transmission problems, and charging system problems. Let's not forget how they left casting sand in the cooling systems. Subaru has problems with the high pressure fuel pumps eating themselves....but they don't come with spare pumps and camshafts in the trunk.

Mike knows this about BMW but he's in denial. They still don't require you to travel with an ECU or Vanos solenoid. They don't even require you to have a sand blaster loaded with walnut shells ( even though I recommend it ).

I carry a tool kit, water, multimeter, test light, a couple bulbs, and a cell phone when I take my car out. The bulbs are there just because it's really a given that one will eventually blow. There used to be TFI modules and all types of stuff I used to carry in my other cars. One of them liked eating clutch cables so I kept a spare in the trunk. Unless I have a repetitive issue I won't be carrying spare parts anymore.

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Mehhh….Im denying nothing. I’m back in our service department daily. Everything will fail sooner or later, and the more complicated they make these things, that complexity just adds to the likelihood that somethings’ gonna break.

Whether you can say that all Audi’s do this, or that all BMW’s/Chevrolet’s/Subaru’s do that, seems like more of a denial to me.
We get the guy with the 250k mile BMW every now and then. ( probably cost him a bagillion dollars to get it there).

The point i was making about the new car over the old one was simple. If you can’t trust your old car to get you there, then take your new(er) one instead. But trying to anticipate what’s gonna break on any of them and carrying around a bunch of spare parts is laughable.

The first time I took the red car to MW where I met you, The freakin thing developed a leak in the radiator on saturday.
( Should’ve had one of those in the trunk I guess). I put stop leak in to fix that, but it caused a heater core rupture instead, and I got to smell that all the way home.
When I drove the Orange car to Mississippi three years ago, I was white knuckling the steering wheel worrying about the old engine failing on me ( remember,..it was full of “Mike engineered”, one off complexity), But I finally just came to terms with it, and figured whatever breaks is gonna break, and just drove. Nothing broke.

The last time I took the Monster to PC fla. I had a slightly loose strut mount bolt, and it was allowing intermittent front end vibration. That was something that could’ve been detected had I DRIVEN the car first before taking the trip, but again, how do you anticipate that? Getting it back home, and fixing it required figuring out what was wrong ( i originally thought it was a defective spindle) removing the tire, caliper, and rotor, and took a big assed torque wrench to pull that nut tight enough to lock the strut, and keep it from moving.

I never would’ve attempted none of that on the side of the road, or in the hotel’s parking lot.

Drive the car, and quit freakin worrying. Whether it’s an old assed one like what we all own here, or a new one, the only thing that needs to be anticipated is that something might go wrong, and get insurance with towing.

I have insurance with towing. I’m not necessarily worrying. I drive the car and I enjoy it. I carry a few extra small things with me. It’s my preference. Each person will act upon their preferences too.

To shift gears a little bit, here’s a question;

We have these older cars where sometimes good parts are getting scarce. Do any of you look for and attain spare parts for your cars and keep them at home base? What kind of stuff do you like to keep around?

Used EEC-IV ECU’s are listed at $500 on eBay

John Dirks Jr said:

Used EEC-IV ECU’s are listed at $500 on eBay

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which is why i have 5 A9P and 3 A9L's on the shelf

mikestang63 said:

which is why i have 5 A9P and 3 A9L's on the shelf

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Or, is it because you have all that on the shelf along with 5L5? You guys are hoarding all the ECU’s and driving the price up through supply and demand affects

BTW, if computer chip shortages continue, availability of aftermarket ECU’s will be affected. That will drive prices of used ones up.

Just think, a thief who might break into my car looking for a gun under the seat might totally miss the more valuable spare ECU I’m lugging around everywhere. I should call my insurance company and add that to the declaration.

CarMichael Angelo said:

Maybe Audis can’t be trusted to drive over 50 miles w/o having a spare ecu in the trunk?

Uhh wait…

Maybe it’s VW’s?

Maybe because they’re the same car,…

Maybe both?

Click to expand...

Kurt, Mad Mike put it more nicely that I was going to, and probably kept me from being censured. VW building a premium compact that is disposable has sucked the fun out of my oldest’s first car, a used “New Beetle”. The dash warning lights play whack a mole. Now I have the ECU fixed so it will talk with the $25 Wal-mart scanner, it still will not talk with the snap on one to read the ABS codes. And the secondary air pump went out while I was getting the ECU immobilizer delete programmed. It is putting out two codes and likes to intermittently sound like a Siamese cat being pulled backwards through a key hole. An M-1 Cardone rebuilt secondary air pump is $400+ from the local FLAPS, $200 at Rock Auto, (and less for brands I do not know or trust enough to last long enough to sell the dung beetle.)

Thats nice Mike has the T-5's. They are $800 broken on CL. My issue is the salt and pepper shakers. Those are really going to be a problem as the years go by, and they dry out. Almost every time I get in my car I have to shake the shakers to get my car to start.