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Still Audi

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If you've known Torsten ZCochrane and me for some time, you probably know that we have somewhat different tastes in automobiles. He's all about passion and racing heritage, things I don't really care about, while he often remarks that Ingolstadt ist the place where "Dr. Frankenstein created his monster, and even today it remains known as the place where monstrosities are created" and that "Ingolstadt is an utterly bland and boring town with no soul or character, and this carries over into the town's main exports.". Just in case you're not familiar with Germany, Ingolstadt is where Audi is based and produced a majority of its cars, such as my A3.

I don't really know why I decided to upload this pic, but since Torsten has semi-recently uploaded one of his car, I thought I needed to catch up (even though I was the one who reminded him to put up another car photo to begin with). Perhaps the photo just gives me a good excuse for some car babble. Was taken back in July 2016 while in Norway, where I ended up after driving to Copenhagen from Germany, then crossing the Øresund Bridge to Sweden while heading to Göteborg, followed by Oslo and continuing onwards to Bergen and finally Flåm. We took a shorter route on the way back, going directly from Norway to Denmark by ferry boat. And yes, I do realize there's a rubbish bin just behind the car, but it was just one of many quick snapshots while stopping to photograph the landscape along the way. I'm sure that Torsten would consider the car and the bin to be equal in terms of character, or something like that.

This car was ordered new from Audi and we went to pick it up in person from the factory in Ingolstadt, without getting eaten by monsters, thankfully. I would've loved to keep my old A3 that I really liked, but since the car belonged to my mother, who works part time at Audi and was able to get a deal she could not refuse, it had to be traded in as part of said deal. I've been driving it daily ever since, as I have to commute to work, and it has been a reliable workhorse ever since. It's great for long distances, as the location of this photo shows, and can also be misused to move lots of furniture, if you're like my mother and are too cheap to rent a van. Sadly though, despite the technical specifications, it consumes the same amount of fuel as my old one, even though it has a smaller engine. Both my old and new A3s are high efficiency models that were tuned for low fuel consumption by aerodynamic tweaks, engine management, stretched gear ratios from 3rd gear upwards and all that kind of stuff. When I drive it like a hypermiler, I get 3.5l/100km (67mpg) on average, while driving along with the rest of traffic still gets you a tad below 4l/100km (59mpg), which is still quite respectable. I'm a sucker for efficiency, so that was the main motivation for getting this specific car. Though as I said, the old one could do that as well, with a bigger engine, higher curb weight, one gear less and so forth. It even had a slightly larger fuel tank, so effectively, the newer car has a shorter range. Bad marks for Audi there.

Still, it's nice to have a more modern car with all the important toys like the ability to listen to Spotify via Bluetooth, not to mention making and taking calls without having to take your hand of the wheel. And I was free to choose the colors, with meant black seats, black carpets, black headlining, black dash, and metallic black paint. I can be pretty creative at times! It only failed us once, but I wasn't driving it at that time, so my mother had the pleasure of dealing with a failed water pump. It's interesting to note that cars we both drive at different points in time happen break down when she drives them, never when I do. Guess cars like my boring driving style more than hers. This car also suffered some damage from a marten, which chewed through the hose responsible for the exhaust gas recirculation system, but the engine didn't seem to care at all about that and worked normally. Only discovered that when I popped the hood to replace a failed low beam. The bulb on the driver's side is a pain in the ass to replace by the way, another non-improvement when compared to the old A3.

My parents were always fans of financing a car through Audi/VW, which gives you many benefits in terms of service and insurance, and then returning it when the contract expires in 3 years, because they have this haunting fear of "old" cars being money pits that break down all the time. In light of the huge diesel scandal that VW/Audi bestowed upon us, we weren't really in the mood to invest any money in a new car, so I managed to convince my mother to just, you know, keep this car like normal people would do. So at the end of the 3 year financing contract, we just paid the remainder of the price and outright bought it. Radical! And so, I'll just merrily keep on driving it everywhere until it becomes uneconomical to repair. And with me driving it, that will probably take forever. To be frank, even if it's Germanic and boringly serious, I do really love the looks of it, and I thoroughly enjoy driving it, even though it doesn't have much power. But there are some weird people like me who find happiness in foresighted and efficient driving with no unnecessary wear.
Image size
1600x990px 1.27 MB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 650D
Shutter Speed
1/250 second
Aperture
F/9.0
Focal Length
50 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
Jul 24, 2016, 2:19:13 PM
Sensor Size
7mm
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Comments7
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Varinki's avatar
Nice.

My family is the opposite once a car is brought it is kept forever and the newest car was made in 1998 most are much older. Back when I got my 1989 Laser in 2005 it was the second newest car we owned and we had only one other car from the 80's everything else was from 1978 or earlier.