If you have several hours to waste.....

[Adrian E]

and want to see what Audi have hidden away, removed from the usual racks of spares and classed as obsolete:

http://trshop.audi.com/konakart/Welcome.do

Amazing what is available for the '8, but my god do some of the prices make your eyes water! Looking at short engines, gearboxes, wiring looms....even stuff like a seat cover at about €600

Other bits are quite sensible - door trims etc don't seem too bad. I need to try searching by part number just out of interest.

Anyone needing an electric boot release switch is in luck - about €6

[notorious]

I think those prices include VAT and shipping, so not bad at all in comparison with what we have in Audi.

Sadly, Audi starting to discontinue parts for D2. Items in Audi Tradition shop are usually not available via Audi dealer network any more.

[Singh]

Originally Posted by notorious

Sadly, Audi starting to discontinue parts for D2. Items in Audi Tradition shop are usually not available via Audi dealer network any more.

BMW have the blueprints to every part for every car they've made locked up in a vault at the Munich HQ, if the part is discontinued. They'll have it made up for you as a commitment to keeping the classics going, I believe Merc do something similar.

[notorious]

I don't believe that works. The problem is that car manufacturers outsource lots of parts, so their supply chain effectively is not under their control. Also, equipment that manufactured those parts was re-purposed or scrapped by part suppliers when contract was finished. So, even with blueprint available to build the actual part Audi need to re-negotiate with original supplier and someone need to built equipment and all the manufacturing process again. This is prohibitively expensive.

[Singh]

It works, and BMW do it, fact. I don't know how they do it, or how much it costs them, or even if they use the same parts supplier, but they make it work.

[notorious]

Magic! I wish it'll work for Audi some day.

[Singh]

BMW had 1,400 rebuilt parts in 2006 alone, it talks about how they keep original presses for metal work and how finding the right supplier to remanufacture the parts works here.

http://www.autospies.com/news/Obsole...sic-BMW-18410/

[Singh]

This answers one of your posts.

Should the original supplier no longer be available, only the BMW Development Division can do the job: Either the engineer responsible for the original part approves the identical part provided by a new supplier or a completely new process of validation must be launched.

[notorious]

Amar