Susannah, Alex's Audi

Hannah is dead, long live Susannah! She's a lovely 1996 Audi cabriolet with a mighty 2.6 litre V6. I bought her at 42k miles in August 1999. I have no doubt if well cared for, she should give me many years of fun. I intend to keep her with me for at least 10 years. After all, I paid nearly £20k for her, and she'd damned well be worth it! She really excels at long distance driving.

2009-08-14 : 265,000 miles, and sadly, it's time to bid farewall to Susannah, for economic reasons, it would cost far too much to make the repairs to keep her on the road. Here's what she looks like now:

2009-07-09 : 263,000 miles on the clock so far, burns half a litre of oil per thousand miles. Needs a service soon.

2003-03-21 : Whew. On the 14th, Susannah was rear-ended by some dim bulb driving a Vauxhall, resulting in damage to the boot and the motors that slides the top on and off. I've only just got the car back, but everything looks perfect! The other driver's insurers paid for everything so I didn't have to worry about paying anything! That is the biggest break I've had in a while. Susannah looks as new as the day she left the factory! There's 153k on the odometer and she needs a service but I can't afford it as I'm out of work.

2003-03-05 : Susannah's been off the road for the last three weeks awaiting parts to sort out the brakes. I've just paid £1369 for repairs!! What happened is one of the rear wheel bearings wore out and failed very horribly after I returned from Edinburgh a month ago. This caused a lot of damage to the rear brake assembly. The parts were very expensive because they've got ABS integrated.

2002-10-11 : I got my car back from the repairers two weeks ago. I'm enormously angry with Norwich Union, their assessor only told them to replace the soft top, and didn't even notice that the boot had been jemmied open, nor were the dents repaired. Bastards. We are still trying to get them to take the car back and do the rest of the work they should have done in the first place. I've had to pay £520 excess as well. Not very happy about it at all, because until they sort it out, and if I have to sell it like that, I stand to lose a lot of money. The odometer's at 137k miles.

2002-09-04 : On August 18th, my much beloved motor was vandalised and things were stolen out of it. The car is now in the hands of the insurers and they are still sorting things out. But one thing I know, I will never drive that car again. Here's what they did to the car. Bastards.

2002-01-28 : In for its usual service, and repairs to the clock in the dashboard, £248 all in. 122k miles on the clock.

2001-12-19 : Odometer is now showing 119k miles on the clock. Soon be time to book her in for a service, probably next month.

2001-09-24 : Accelerator pedal was replaced at a cost of £118, which also includes replacement windscreen wipers, so not too bad. Windscreen definitely a lot better.

2001-09-08 : Finally, she got her MOT and service done yesterday. They replaced the windscreen and I paid £50 excess on my insurance for that, sorted out a few niggles with the car (loose rear registration plate and sticky passenger side door), but didn't replace the accelerator pedal as it was out of stock. All this for £122.23, not bad! It passed the MOT, yay! :o) The odometer now reads 112k on the car since the last entry, so I am definitely driving less these days. Being able to work from home rocks!

2001-08-24 : Now well into the 111k miles, she's due for a MOT and a service. She's been booked in for next week, all fingers crossed that she'll only need a new windscreen and pass its MOT. She's got to!

2001-06-09 : She's not been without a few problems though, but I think it's quite reasonable as she's nearly 6 years old now. I recently had to replace the front shock absorbers, new CV joint on the left outer wheel, new suspension bushes on the rear, new front tyres (will do the rear tyres next payday), and the cambelt on the V6 has been replaced. MOT due in August!

There's just one thing - seems the windscreen has an annoying habit of cracking in the same place on the left bottom side - I know last year I had to have the windscreen replaced. I've just noticed another crack forming in the same place, it may fail the MOT but thankfully I am insured for this so it won't cost me a fortune - last time I only paid 50 quid towards replacement.