Steve123

I had a BMW X5 catch fire and written off.

I don’t get out much so haven’t heard of the 15 minute City Zone thing, what is it please ?

I’ve got six cars. One is under restoration which should take years to do, and one is a Triumph Herald 13/60 estate. I use the Triumph to carry my five dogs out for shooting or just general dog walking. Last week I received notification of the road tax for the RS6 ; it was £600. My other cars have significantly larger engines so what will their road tax be ? I’ve decided to SORN the RS6 and put myself on the insurance of my wife’s Alfa Romeo. For the first time ever, the cost of road tax has made me wince. Using a car has now become seriously painful..

P.S. I’ve now sold my RS4 and replaced it with an RS6 Avant. How can I get this changed in my shown details ? Cheers.

In the late 1980’s I spent most weekends with a girlfriend who lived in Watford . On a Monday morning I would walk to the station to go to work. My walk would take me past a derelict house that had a car covered in a tarpaulin up on bricks in the front garden. The shape of the car intrigued me. One morning I climbed over the low front garden wall to investigate. Lifting up a corner of the tarp I saw some dark blue paintwork, a red leather interior, a nice alloy wheel and a badge which said “ OSI “, but was shouted at by a near neighbour so could look no further and investigated no more, a situation made easier by getting blown out by that girlfriend. Some months later I was sitting at the bar of a hotel in Marlow. Wearing my Aston Martin Owners Club pin in my lapel, this was noticed by the bartender who owned a Jowett Javelin. We chatted for a while and then he went off to serve another customer. A few minutes later he returned to say that he’d discovered that the other customer owned a rare Italian/Swiss car called a Monteverdi so I joined him for a drink. During our conversation I learned that he was from Italy and here on business. Eventually I told him about the car seemingly dumped in Watford. Describing the blue metallic paintwork, the red leather interior and the alloy wheel, I also mentioned, of course, that the car was an OSI, at which point he almost fell off his bar stool. He then recovered and told me that it was an ISO, probably a Rivolta and once owned by James Stewart and later by Princess Grace of Monaco. The ISO badge had been put on the car backwards by mistake perhaps ? He immediately asked if I would take him to see the car, but I had drunk several Scotches by then, so declined. I drew him a map of its location , gave him my business card and he called a taxi to go to Watford. Later that night the phone in my hotel room rang and it was him. The car was as he described it and he was ecstatic. He planned to recover the car and have it trailered back to his home in Switzerland. I told him that would mean he would be stealing it but he said that doesn’t worry him. Some weeks later a letter arrived from him enclosing a cheque for £1000. It was his thanks to me for finding the car . The cheque bounced a few times but eventually paid out. About a year later I went to a Ferrari club meeting and was told that this ISO had received a no expense spared restoration and now sported beautiful chrome wire wheels. It had, though, been seized in part payment against a large tax bill !

Welcome to the world of Audi main dealers. You’d have been better off buying a used car from Arthur Daley.

Thanks, Steve, it’s interesting what you say about breakdown firms attending less. I’ve got five cars insured with National Farmers Union ( who also cover my thatched farmhouse and contents so I pay them a good premium ). NFU use the RAC so I imagined I’d have top notch cover, but obviously not ! When my Alfa Romeo GTA Sportwagon got rear ended and written off a few months ago, the NFU rang me twice to see if I was happy with the quality of the breakdown service ; this time I never heard from them at all. Many thanks for your helpful advice re the door lock ! Cheers, Steve.

Oh yes, I should have said. Since I own a few cars I’ve invested in a battery powered tyre inflator. It’s no bigger than a cordless drill and will pump up , through not from flat , about twelve tyres. Cheers, Steve.

Hello Gareth, I’m a surprised as you that plastic valves caps corroded onto the valve. Perhaps there was an element of metal in them ? In any event I’m replacing them all at £65.00 plus vat per valve. When I first spoke to National Tyre Services ( now owned by Halfords, I believe) I didn’t have the car with me and they said that they’d replace one free of charge. I guess that replacing all four changed their mind just a bit ! Incidentally, they couldn’t source them from anyone’s stock, so I’ve got to wait for them to be delivered to NTS. Audi had them in stock but refused to let NTS have them. Cheers, Steve.

Will it fit an RS6 ? They have rear diffusers.

Last week neither either of my two remotes nor their associated keys would open my drivers door. All three other doors and the boot would open, though. When I rang the RAC there was a long delay whilst the bloke went off the phone, ostensibly to check something. When he came back, it was to say that they didn’t regard my problem as a bona fide breakdown, and they therefore would not be attending unless I paid £160.00. This effectively means that the RAC now choose to exclude items that are genuine breakdowns ; what else is on this list, I wonder ? Responses on either the RAC or the door lock problem are very welcome.

I’m embarrassed to say it, but having never had a dashboard warning I only ever visually checked my tyres for the correct pressures. Having then received a dashboard warning I attended to the tyre. The plastic valve caps had seized on all of them thus requiring the use of pliers. It seems that the valves themselves had corroded, so I gently cleaned them with a suede shoe wire brush and them smeared them with Vaseline. I then corrected three of the tyres and put the valve caps back. The fourth valve would not accept a cap ( it just kept turning) ; nor would it accept the air pump nozzle. Is it possible to have the valves replaced whilst the tyres are still on the car ?

I forgot to mention that I’ve now changed from an RS4 to an RS6, which is much newer with substantially lower mileage. One small observation is this :- When the Alfa Romeo Guilia Quatrofoglio came out three or four years ago I bought one for my wife. After a short while she decided that she didn’t like its handling so I sold it and replaced it with an RS6 . Both cars were painted red. The public attention given to the Alfa was mind boggling. Nobody looks twice at the Audi.

Hello, my car is a different model, so maybe the fault identified with your car doesn’t apply. I must say, though, that I dreaded the possibility that Audi would inevitably find some faults that needed attention. However, my car passed with flying colours which both surprised and pleased me hugely. Since I know of two independent Audi specialists locally, I doubt that I’ll ever use any Main Dealer for any work.

My RS6 was recently recalled to remedy a possible future oil strainer filter problem. The letter from Audi said that their local main dealer would require the car for “ approximately one day “. When I arrived at their showroom I was told that they would need it for at least three to four days and then it would have to be driven thirty miles to another of their branches to have it “ calibrated “. Their courtesy car had so little diesel in it that I had to detour significantly from my route home to buy some gas. Forty eight hours later they rang to say my car had been done and I was to return their car immediately because it had been allocated to another customer. This was not possible and the main dealer was not happy about this. A minor row ensued but I would not give way. In the end it was agreed that they would deliver my car and recover their own. In addition to this problem there were more. I was told that my car would be given a complimentary valet and a complimentary fifty point inspection for any potential faults. This was to be emailed to me by their engineers department. Neither of these things happened. When I queried about the absence of the report I was told that my car was “ OK, and there was nothing wrong with it “ ! My other cars have been Bentleys or Aston Martins which have been returned to the factories for servicing and my dealings with them are polite and efficient; perhaps I have been spoiled by them ?