The wife's cast-offs

abailie

abailie

Member
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Hi,
I'm Andrew. My wife waited (very impatiently) back in the day for Audi to release the diesel A2. As soon as it was available she hopped off down to the local dealer and placed the order - Atlantic blue, Leather seats, open sky roof, winter pack, dual DIN CD stereo, and probably a few other things I've forgotten about. About 3 years later she scuffed it lightly on a wall and took it to Audi to get repaired. Unfortunately, the car never came home because she found a 1 year old 225 TT Quattro speedster in the lot.

Fast forward about 14 years, and about 4 cars, and my wife is still lamenting getting rid of the A2. She was driving an A1 at the time, but they really aren't anywhere near as nice and it was coming to the end of the 3 year financing. So she started looking in gumtree, eBay, etc. for A2s. After a few weeks of fruitless searching, she eventually found one which looked like the same specs as her old A2. The simple reason for this was that it was her old A2, and it had just been listed on gumtree. We went and looked her over - the years had not been kind. Things were broken, or worn, or missing, or painted a weird colour in the case of the alloys, but everything appeared to work, so we bought her again. Coincidently, the very next week, we stumbled across the TT as well and it had faired even less well - someone had been "improving" it.

My wife's been driving the A2 for the last few years and things have slowly deteriorated (definitely talking about the car here). It finally got so bad that she had to buy another car (a 10 year-old A1 this time) as she couldn't rely on the A2 any more.

This is of course when I had the epic idea of fixing her up (again it's the A2 of course, not the wife). So here I am. I've had a few conversations on the market place, but this is my first real post. Wish me luck. I'm an electronic engineer, with years of experience in PCB design and prototyping, firmware development, interface protocols and device integration, but I've never really messed about too much with modern (relatively speaking) car electronics.

I'll probably start posting on my problems soo enough - this is a kind of niche agony aunt really, isn't it?

Cheers,

Andrew
 
Welcome aboard Andrew :) That's a great back-story and a car that sounds like it should be well worth saving. Ask away with any questions, although not too many of us will know or be able to find our way around the electronics to the extent that you can.
 
abailie said:
View attachment 99839

Hi,
I'm Andrew. My wife waited (very impatiently) back in the day for Audi to release the diesel A2. As soon as it was available she hopped off down to the local dealer and placed the order - Atlantic blue, Leather seats, open sky roof, winter pack, dual DIN CD stereo, and probably a few other things I've forgotten about. About 3 years later she scuffed it lightly on a wall and took it to Audi to get repaired. Unfortunately, the car never came home because she found a 1 year old 225 TT Quattro speedster in the lot.

Fast forward about 14 years, and about 4 cars, and my wife is still lamenting getting rid of the A2. She was driving an A1 at the time, but they really aren't anywhere near as nice and it was coming to the end of the 3 year financing. So she started looking in gumtree, eBay, etc. for A2s. After a few weeks of fruitless searching, she eventually found one which looked like the same specs as her old A2. The simple reason for this was that it was her old A2, and it had just been listed on gumtree. We went and looked her over - the years had not been kind. Things were broken, or worn, or missing, or painted a weird colour in the case of the alloys, but everything appeared to work, so we bought her again. Coincidently, the very next week, we stumbled across the TT as well and it had faired even less well - someone had been "improving" it.

My wife's been driving the A2 for the last few years and things have slowly deteriorated (definitely talking about the car here). It finally got so bad that she had to buy another car (a 10 year-old A1 this time) as she couldn't rely on the A2 any more.

This is of course when I had the epic idea of fixing her up (again it's the A2 of course, not the wife). So here I am. I've had a few conversations on the market place, but this is my first real post. Wish me luck. I'm an electronic engineer, with years of experience in PCB design and prototyping, firmware development, interface protocols and device integration, but I've never really messed about too much with modern (relatively speaking) car electronics.

I'll probably start posting on my problems soo enough - this is a kind of niche agony aunt really, isn't it?

Cheers,

Andrew
Click to expand...
Hi Andrew ... not too far away from you down in Portaferry 😀
 
Proghound said:
Welcome aboard Andrew :) That's a great back-story and a car that sounds like it should be well worth saving. Ask away with any questions, although not too many of us will know or be able to find our way around the electronics to the extent that you can.
Click to expand...

Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Welcome and I wish you very best. Maybe just a quick recap of my experience. I hope it will be helpfull.
I am 1 year into such a project and I would say this. If you want to get the car back just that your wife will have a new daily car it is not worth it. Just buy a newer, safer car (she already has it). If the car has sentimental value (memories, etc.) then go for it. But understand from the start that this is not a good decision from a financial point.
My car was not falling apart, but it was not used for 8 years, so a lot had to be done/replaced. And I am not using it as a daily, just as a weekend fun car. When I have decided to do this project, I had x budget in mind. After 1 year I am at arround 1.8x budget and it is still not all done that I have planned (exterior painting, etc.). And this is with me doing the majority of the work by myself with the help of this great forum. If I would need to pay others to do, I would probably be at 4x of the budget and 2x the car is worth now.
Would I do it again? Yes, but for me this is not a car. It shows me how the cars were in the past, it gets me completelly new experiences in comparison with newer cars. I go out just to drive it (my motorcycle is really sad this year for not using it), because it gives me a large smile on my face. I just sit in it, turn the key and I automatically get a smile on my face.
And I know that there are better cars, newer cars, but they do not offer the A2 experience. If your wife does not care anymore about A2 experience, just turn this page of the book. Memories will remain ;). If you do not go into this with good reason and with full understanding that this is an old car, you and your wife will just get frustrated and this will prevail over the good memories. I have seen this on my colleagues and you can see it on the gumtree where a lot of half done ''projects'' are sold for pennies.
 
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mtl said:
Welcome and I wish you very best. Maybe just a quick recap of my experience. I hope it will be helpfull.
I am 1 year into such a project and I would say this. If you want to get the car back just that your wife will have a new daily car it is not worth it. Just buy a newer, safer car (she already has it). If the car has sentimental value (memories, etc.) then go for it. But understand from the start that this is not a good decision from a financial point.
My car was not falling apart, but it was not used for 8 years, so a lot had to be done/replaced. And I am not using it as a daily, just as a weekend fun car. When I have decided to do this project, I had x budget in mind. After 1 year I am at arround 1.8x budget and it is still not all done that I have planned (exterior painting, etc.). And this is with me doing the majority of the work by myself with the help of this great forum. If I would need to pay others to do, I would probably be at 4x of the budget and 2x the car is worth now.
Would I do it again? Yes, but for me this is not a car. It shows me how the cars were in the past, it gets me completelly new experiences in comparison with newer cars. I go out just to drive it (my motorcycle is really sad this year for not using it), because it gives me a large smile on my face. I just sit in it, turn the key and I automatically get a smile on my face.
And I know that there are better cars, newer cars, but they do not offer the A2 experience. If your wife does not care anymore about A2 experience, just turn this page of the book. Memories will remain ;). If you do not go into this with good reason and with full understanding that this is an old car, you and your wife will just get frustrated and this will prevail over the good memories. I have seen this on my colleagues and you can see it on the gumtree where a lot of half done ''projects'' are sold for pennies.
Click to expand...
Thanks @mtl. I should probably have said in the intro that we also have a 1972 VW camper that's gone through an engine, a steering box (6 month wait for a reconditioned model), and numerous other parts over the years, so we are not completely naive to the work/costs ahead. And there really isn't too much wrong with the car - we have a local VW specialist garage that has been doing the servicing/MOT prep since we got her back, and he's now sorted everything mechanical that was wrong when we got her.
Andrew
 
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