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Checking The Power Steering Fluid Level

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Life with my Car Lust

Part 5–Life With My Car Lust

In the previous installments of this series, I described my search for a $2,500 occasional second car and my resulting purchase of a 115,000-mile 1986 Audi Coupe GT. I also described the many issues I found once the initial euphoria wore off and discussed the Coupe GT’s role in the sports car hierarchy back in the 1980s.

So, now that we’re all up to speed on the background, we can get to the meat of the story–the reality of life with a Car Lust car. In this age of universal automotive excellence, is it completely crazy to drive a quirky older car, or are there rewards to following the road less traveled?

in fact driven new off the pages of my old car magazines; it was a quarter-century old and had the issues to go with it.

So, with spreadsheet in hand, I began to dispassionately document the issues. The most pressing problem was that my car had comprehensively failed emissions; if I couldn’t pass emissions, I wouldn’t be able to register the car. The other major issues were the highway vibration, the exhaust leak, a valve cover gasket leak, a broken sunroof that wouldn’t seal, some rust on the A-pillar, a rough cold idle, a high clutch release, sticky gear changes when cold, and damp floor panels.

Less major, but still annoying, were the semi-functional oil pressure and temperature gauges, the broken cigarette lighter, the awful stereo and speakers, a loose driver’s-side door handle, cut windshield washer fluid lines, a noisy passenger’s side window regulator, bad wiper blades, a headlight that had gone astray, and a fuel gauge that topped out at around 80-percent full–plus an array of small cosmetic issues such as peeling paint on the removable sunroof and a missing front reflector.

 On the other side of the coin, the Audi’s body, paint, and glass...

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