1984 Audi 5000 S from North America - Comments

Installed rebuilt lifetime warranty steering rack when we bought the car - the original was leaking slightly. This has been fine since.

Fuel pump relay switch failed. So far the only time the car has 'broken down'. As this was at the end of our driveway, it wasn't a big problem. Preventive maintenance has included replacing the alternator (rebuilt), radiator, water pump, power steering/brakes hydraulic pump, rear brake cylinders, brake master cylinder, and front strut inserts. Bearing in mind the mileage we cover, this seems reasonable.

The car really needs more power, although I should add that our other cars include two Jaguars and a Lotus. Other than that, it has provided comfortable, safe motoring with great load carrying capability. Incidentally, not once have we experienced the dreaded 'unintended acceleration' attributed to this generation of Audi. What a load of rubbish those reports turned out to be!

Steve:

I thought that your article on the Audi 5000 was well written. However, I must take exception to your comment

about the Audi's "unintentional acceleration" being pure

rubbish. Sometime back around 1987, I was just stopping for a red light. As the light turned red, A red Audi 5000 station wagon waiting at the intersection darted out into the intersection with the driver locking up the brakes to get it stopped. It took her a few tries to do so, and the car eventually stalled out as it jumped and came to rest on the divider. Quite frankly, the woman behind the wheel looked as though she were trying to break a bucking bronco. It all happened so quickly, but I remember saying to my brother, who was seated next to me, I guess those reports about the Audi's have some truth to them after all.

In my write-up I said nothing about the impossibility of a throttle jamming open - that can happen with any vehicle. What has been shown to be untrue is the claim that these vehicles take off from a standstill with the driver's foot hard on the brake pedal. That is what 60 minutes claimed, and faked by artificially introducing high pressure into the automatic transmission. They never showed or mentioned that the car was anything, but standard. Another interesting point: no-one reported a malfunction in the manual transmission cars...

Eventually, the NHTSA found that the Audi 5000 had the lowest fatality rate of any car in the United States during its production run. Many Audi owners, who traded in their cars in the wake of the 60 Minutes fiasco, were stung twice: they lost money on trade-ins as the brand plummeted to an all-time low, and bought a less safe car.