Certified!! (?)

So far, it looks like the dealership is going to treat the oil leak as a warranty item. I showed up last night with the pictures and I'm not sure how well they were received. I think I keep missing the service manager's jokes. Several times now, he's said something and smiled and I never know whether he's joking or not. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor so I'm not sure why I'm not picking up what he's laying down.

In any case, I'll be dropping off the car at the end of the weekend for some work. They're already due to replace the rear seat latch and rear seat belt tensioner sensor under warranty, and will be looking at the leak with the idea that fixing it will be under warranty and they'll do my timing belt replacement work while they're in there. It'll save me a bundle on labor and I'll mostly end up just paying for parts. He said, "Usually, Audi likes to see drops of oil to call it a leak." which I thought was interesting. Hopefully the level of wetness in the area will classify it as a "leak" and not some lesser level of unwarrantied seepage. If they tell me it won't be covered under the warranty then I'm back to fixing it myself in the barn. However it gets done, I'm looking forward to the feeling of well-being that'll come from knowing that there's a new timing belt riding on new bearings in there.

By the way, he officially verified that I could ignore the "change the toothed belt every 75,000 miles" red sticker under the hood. The good word from Audi is that the belts are good for 105K miles. Splash some rubber-degrading pertroleum around in there on the belt though, and I'll still be glad to have a nice new belt spinning the cams.

So now I'm starting to think less about the timing belt and more about phase one of my modification plans. I'm looking at new plus-one-size wheels and tires (I need new tires come springtime anyway), big brake kits, and new suspension. I'm like a kid with the Monkey Wards catalog before Christmas. Oooo... dating myself a bit with that one.