My manager at work said something to this effect.

Clutched alternator. Bloody expensive, works no better than any other alternator in the world.

#germancarlife

No joke, both OEM and aftermarket alternators were expensive as fuck, and I didn’t have ages to look for deals (I needed my car to get to work). I believe that most of the cost is because there’s a clutch on it, although the mechanic who did the work was terrible at communicating details.

Agreed. For fun, I often tell people that the 2003 Audi A4 I bought at the start of the year has cost me about $5,000 AUD in repair bills, but of that, $500 was a new battery and a few odd bits of wiring, $2,000 was a new clutch and flywheel and $1,000 was a new alternator - all basically one-time maintenance items…

This is my list also, although I’d maybe swap the Miata for a McLaren F1.

I think that America’s decision is that it’s time for them and NATO to see other people.

Soldiers I’ve met in my life fall into two very distinct categories -

Good numbers are that he’s already had that one...

NP all day. Love German assault sedans, and I actually don’t mind the way this one looks now that it’s rolling that bodykit.

Unless the judge decides to award costs to the defendant, in which case the plaintiffs are going to have to pay all the defendant’s legal expenses as well. In which case the lawyers and the defendant win, and the plaintiffs lose twice as hard. This is known as ‘justice’.

Teslas already have armoured skid plates; they were fitted in a recall about two years back, if I remember right. Additionally, Teslas are less prone to exploding than gasoline cars, which set alight frequently in high-speed crashes.

Very unusual that they haven’t picked it up; most Audis have a kind of ‘killswitch’ which notes that the car’s been flashed and cannot be undone due to the way it’s encrypted. However, it’s entirely possible that your dealer hasn’t been checking for that flag when you’ve had it serviced.

If you’re manual-hunting, get a 2017 A4 in top-trim. It won’t be much slower than this, but it does come with a manual.

Ah, but you’ve lost warranty by modding it, and if you write it off and they recover the ECU (usual course for an accident, as so to determine exactly what the driver did in the seconds leading up to the collision), they’ll refuse to cover it.

The gun’s a major structural element, so not really. You could probably replace it with a steel mockup, though.

I would drive the shit out of that.

They’re also the quickest of the German automakers, on average; for instance, three years after introduction, the RS6/7 is still the fastest car in its segment and likely won’t be overtaken until the new E63 AMG is released next year. I think that the cars are less ‘having fun’ and more ‘getting from Point A to Point…

This fits in pretty well with Audi’s “brand image”. They don’t try for the “one-percenter manic ultraviolence” image of Mercedes, or the “self-assured old-sport arrogance” of BMW; instead, Audi is all about being quiet, refined and extremely technologically advanced. Their engines have natural exhaust notes, their…

Yeah, unfortunately, they seem to have switched to Haldex for all their mainline cars. I expect that Torsen differentials (generally either 50/50 or 40/60 F/R, and capable of apportioning up to 80% power to one axle) will continue on Quattro GmbH’s cars (RS models and the R8), but I think that Audi have otherwise…