Return to standard ?, advice random Audrey thread.

ScottD3

ScottD3

I want your faulty electronics
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Not sure what to call it to make sense so it's called what it is.

With the gearbox failing/failed, I've decided it's time to move on and leave the B5 behind.

I'm currently unsure what to do with Audrey.
I'd like to sell her as it to someone who has more time and space than I have to fix the gearbox but I fear it will go cheap to some random to will drive her to destruction and then break her.

So I'm torn between breaking her but I lack space at the moment.
Or put her back to standard but I lack standard parts to put her back to standard.

Is anyone interested in some of the extras or normal items I got on Audrey in exchange for your standard parts to keep her moving and then I can sell her semi standard.

I think.

Or would it just be easier to sell her as is?
Ahhhhhhh
 
Ill swap wiper arms if there passat B5.5 :)

Get a list up of some of the goodies lol
 
I'd want your rns-d for mine as yours isn't cracked. And anything you have for iPod connectivity buddy?
 
Passat B5.5 wiper arms.
312mm brakes.
Porsche caps.
Passat engine covers.
Facelift scuttle plate.
Facelift bonnet grill.
Auto dimming mirror.
W12 interior light with mood lighting.
Folding mirrors.
Double din RNS-d.
TV tuner.
Phatbox.
Facelift cluster.
RS4 alloys.
Sun glasses holder.

I think that's it of bits I'm willing to remove back to standard.

I do have some B6 Alloy uprights that I no longer need.
Also my multifunction tiptronic 3 spoke steering wheel.
 
Folding mirrors are just the coolest thing possible....
 
This is a bad idea Scott, after all the love and work you have lavished on Audrey and what with her being a family heirloom and all.
 
With the damaged to the gearbox, its going to be a limited market (Spares or repairs) Anyone looking around for a cheap run around is not going to buy one with a damaged gearbox. Did you also get the damage to the roof sorted, as things like that will also drop the price. The car is always going to be worth a lot more to you than someone else, someone who buys a car of that age does not care about its history or how much work you have put into it with it mods etc, they just want a cheap car that will take them from A to B without costing them to much money and keeps passing it MOT, once it start failing its off to the breakers, and to find another cheap run around.

I know what you are going through, I had the same choice a few years back but decided to keep the car in the garage and restore it.

Do you have a garage to keep the car in and fix it in your own time?
 
I suspect the real issue is that its not really special enough to warrant a garaged rebuild.

If theres an attachment and you really do want to keep it, then haul the box out and have it fixed, or throw another used box in and off you go.

I get the feeling though that while there's an attachment, you dont actually want to spend any money on it, because its effectively old and worthless.

When i did the rear suspension on my car a few months ago, i got the rage with it and was thinking about selling it, because it seemed like it was always broken and always needed work done. The first issue that pops up is then that i've already spent a lot replacing suspension, brakes etc, and all of that money would end up in the bin if i got rid. Once the mist settled and i got it working again, you slowly realise that infact, the cars been VERY reliable, it was only off the road because i'm being a perfectionist and replacing soggy parts with new ones, and now it has all these new bits its better than it ever has been.

In some respects you think "ow, i've just spent £500 fixing a car thats only worth about £800" on the other, you consider what you'd actually need to spend to replace it with something actually better. Because the issue is you need to buy newer by enough that the same age related reliability stuff isnt a problem yet, but you also need to buy something in the same class or higher. You cant go buy a 2 grand B6 A4, because its also going to be 10+ years old and will be needing work done, so your 2 grand down and in the same position. You could sell up and buy a 3 year old Aygo for a couple grand. Sure, its not going to break down for years and nothing will need done to it, but its a horrible car. So you end up realising that to replace it, you need to spent about 10k on a 4-5year old B8 A4. At which point £500 to keep the old bus going doesnt seem so bad any more.
 
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aragorn said:
In some respects you think "ow, i've just spent £500 fixing a car thats only worth about £800" on the other, you consider what you'd actually need to spend to replace it with something actually better. Because the issue is you need to buy newer by enough that the same age related reliability stuff isnt a problem yet, but you also need to buy something in the same class or higher. You cant go buy a 2 grand B6 A4, because its also going to be 10+ years old and will be needing work done, so your 2 grand down and in the same position. You could sell up and buy a 3 year old Aygo for a couple grand. Sure, its not going to break down for years and nothing will need done to it, but its a horrible car. So you end up realising that to replace it, you need to spent about 10k on a 4-5year old B8 A4. At which point £500 to keep the old bus going doesnt seem so bad any more.
Click to expand...

Nail and head spring to mind
 
We need to keep the B5's going strong i see cars like 6 years old that just get neglected and look ****e compared to a nice well looked after 14+ year old B5, yes i paid 2.5k and it probably stands me at 8k after everything ive done in the 3/4 years of owning it and that figure will only rise as it just ticks all the right boxes for me and has been very reliable in all fairness.

I cant honestly see the point in shelling out on a new motor when i could make this motor ten times better than the motor i would probably buy !!
 
I agree with bradderz there is a reason you see so many b5's on the road, because put simply, there awesome!!!! Buy a new car at what 8 grand what's it got? Air con if that. Buy a 1000 pound b5 and it will have more extras then the new car. And will be just as, or not reliable than the new car
 
A 14 year old car which looks like its never going to see a welding torch can't be bad. If it was a Ford Focus of the same year it would have dissolved underneath.
After 6 years owning mine, and having made the mistake of buying cheap Locheed Delphi arms a few years ago, having replaced them for every MOT since, feel it's well worth the investment for a set of Meyle HD arms, drop links and tie rod ends, the car is due me nothing.
I can't spend as much on it in repairs as I would if I were to take finance on a newer car and just pay for a newer car.

My mate just picked up an absolute mint PFL B5 saloon, 37,000 genuine miles, paid 2k, but it's as good as a brand new one as it's been garaged all the time
 
Its a tricky one and I've been arguing with my self for the last month or two about what to do.

Yes it is cheaper to fix the car than buy another one and this has always been my argument for fixing any of our cars cause it will always be cheaper but like Aragorn said.
There does come a time when enough is enough and since we've started looking to the future a lot more recently than just a month or two it seem sensible.
I think.

We've just moved in to our first house (buying rather than renting), getting married in 3 months and the talk of kids have started to get a bit more serious. Plus we want to drive to germany, italy and the alps before the kids arrive and spending time, money and effort worrying about a 14 year old B5 seems a bit counter productive.
If it was a quattro I could see the point in storing it and getting it perfect but its not, I got this odd need to keep/want the car cause of the history it has with in the family but they does not make it cheaper to fix, more reliable or more expensive to others.
We got a garage and the car might just fit in it but with the gear box the way it is, it wont get off the drive way and it still have all the moving house boxes in there.
I would love to keep it in the garage and do it up over the months/years but I fear it would get neglected and get worse cause I'll be more interested in the house and new car.

Or would I?

being all logical and ****e it makes sense to move it on but thinking about the time, effort, history and how much I like the car, it can't bring my self to part with it.
Maybe a PD130 auto conversion might be worth it?
 
That's what I'm doing to mine when the engine pops it's clogs, pd130 lump :D
 
no.... not the PD lump!!! what an unreliable diesel drinking lump of scrap metal... why would you want to do that?

I looked into converting my old 130 passat to a 110!!! thats how much I hate that engine..
 
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Pmsl, really are they that bad James ment to be reliable I heard
 
I would fix it and decide if you want to keep it. If you still want rid then at least you can sell the car as a runner. Plus can still swap the mirrors etc to get some more money back.

PM me with a price if you would like to sell the aluminium uprights however.
 
Gunny110 said:
Pmsl, really are they that bad James ment to be reliable I heard
Click to expand...

ive seen the old ve engines with 600k + on them infact theres an a4 on ebay with 320k and an old 80 on with 370k the now.. when do you see a pd with they miles?

I know a few taxi drivers there old ve lumps done easily 600k yet the pd's they had were lucky to see 250k!!
most of the taxi drivers I know swapped from passats to skoda Octavias when the passats started going pd
the skoda kept the ve lump until around 2004
 
TBH, no engine will do 600k "easily".

Yes, they go get up to some big mileages, but at 600k the engine WILL be utterly fcked.

A lot of PD's will have the miles and have just been wound back.

Given the PD is a revision of the VE engine with lots of improvements to bottom end strength etc, i simply cant believe they're a worse engine for going the distance.

Folk use PD blocks when building big power VE engines due to that added strength.

Some folk dont like the electronics and whatnot, but lorrys have used unit injectors for years, and you can be sure if they're used in commercial stuff, they must work better than the alternative.

Personally i would happily have a PD130 over a VE engine, not least because tuning scope is much widened. A simple turbo swap will see you knocking on the door of 230hp, whereas on a VE motor you'd need to have changed the turbo, pump, injectors etc etc just to get past 150.
 
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I've got a early PD115 and have to say it's far from a lump of scrap metal, it's done just short of 300K miles and apart form a HG failure around 250K miles which was a simple enough fix, it's been fine ever since. When I had the head off the cylinders & head were checked over and they were in perfect condition, looking forward to a few more 100K miles.

The 2.0TDi engines have problems with injectors on the 170BHP (Replaced under recall) and the 170&140 BHP engines need to have the balance shaft & oil pump checked/replaced. The only one I would avoid is the BLB engine unless the engine has had the chain to gear conversion, as that's around £1K for the conversion...
 
Car makers are continually coming up with even more lucrative ways to tempt customers into buying new cars. For example a local garage are putting together an offer for two brand new 14 plate SEAT cars for £249 a month. For that you get a SEAT Mii Toca 1.0 and a SEAT Leon ST. Not sure of engine on that one. You need £7k up front as a deposit, then you pay £249 for the next 3 years. Now the small print. Either pay the final instalment of £9k plus usual admin fees or walk away and the whole process starts over.

I think you can be emotionally black-mailed into keeping an older car on the road. Part of that is your pride and enthusiasm that your 14+ year old Audi has a better paintwork than your neighbour's new car. Next, just because you've invested in it you feel that you have to keep it because you're effectively losing money if you sell it.

However the reality is that the car is simply getting old. For example the airbags on my B5 quattro are due for replacement in 2016. I won't be in a position to replace them as it will be prohibitively expensive (front and seat airbags). Then other safety concerns. For example - I've just ordered new front seat-belts for my wife's 2003 A2 as they weren't retracting properly. It's an MOT fail. I did see if there was a recall, but no. That's £300 and I'm fitting them myself.

The ride on both cars could be better, but you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise it's a bottomless pit in pursuit of perfection. I renewed the entire suspension on the A2 with BOGE shocks, new ARB bushes, new drop links, new top bearings, etc. The A4 has had new arms, just renewed to Meyle HD top arms after fitting budget parts, new rear arms, new rear springs, new ARB bushes, the list goes on and on.

If I were you, then price a replacement gearbox. But drive it as your daily commute. You'll curse the car if it's in the garage reminding you it needs fixed.
 
Thanks for the posts people.

It's the same arguments I've been having with my self.

Decided what I'm doing to do while I was driving away in my new Audi (happy voice).

I'm going to strip Audrey down abd sell what I can while keeping her as a rolling chassis to get her picked up by the metal people.

PM me for what you want unless you've already done it and I'll get back to you.


Thanks again for the time and banter lads.
 
If you want.

View attachment 29381

View attachment 29382

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That's all I got for now mate.
I'll get proper ones later.
 
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Are you going to embed your fully stat for the A8?
 
Totally impressed - I do think the A8 is super cool - really understated - smooth - effortless - Audi engineering at its best. I like driving my little old A4 but I imagine you will get such
 
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