US student loans have various humiliating processes you can use to get some deferments, but if you never actually start making money with or without your degree you still have to pay them back eventually and they never go away and if you have outstanding student loans you can't close escrow on a home, or do some other important things.

Luckily Audi has a lot of experience dealing with corrosion, having produced an all-aluminum car in 1994 with the A8. Lots of warnings in all the service documentation about not using the wrong fasteners, about only using tin-plated ring terminals, etc. Unintentional grounding is a problem anyway... but only if you're not intentionally grounded, through a compatible terminal.

We knew they had poison gas because we kept the receipts. We knew they didn't have poison gas any more because they had already used it, and it was very old.

And the rest of us deserve some of whatever it is you're smoking. Or drinking.

So now you want the breweries to pay to have it sent to a processor, and have the cost go up dramatically, even though this stuff is food which was approved for human consumption and it's been boiled, so there's just no reason for that to happen. The breweries can legally make it into bread on the premises and sell it to humans but you don't want it to be fed to animals.

You'd probably want to use a pretty fat piece of fiber, because automotive cables get flexed and abraded and you'd want protection. Ideally, you'd make a loop, and it would be fault-tolerant. On the plus side, you don't need much in the way of data rates; infotainment needs to be on a separate bus anyway. But it's a great idea, for sure. I'd prefer one fat wire for power, though. Everything can ground through the chassis since all the signals are going through the fiber.

The sad thing is that there's an easy way to save weight on wiring. It's called moving to a higher voltage. Audi is already unafraid to make your battery expensive. A simple regulator provides 12V power to systems that require it, and moving literally all of the lighting to LED solves the lamp availability problem and is long overdue in any case, on any vehicle where it is not present.

Another way would be to distribute networked controllers more throughout the car. This just doesn't have to be expensive any more. It does complicate repairs, but Audi is unafraid to complicate repairs, as well.

Wait, what?

But we're talking about this in the context of Heartbleed, where pre-patch mitigation involved disabling critical services... A patch is what was needed here, and nothing else would suit.

I have found a shitpot of broken COPPER wires on my 1997 A8, in places like the wiring leading to the left side knock sensor which doesn't even flex much since it's attached to the fuel rail. I guarantee you that it will go badly.

Well, as I've stated above, the problem is selling them. The kind of people who buy their cars aren't buying the arguments about electrics, it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. They're the ones with the money.

If Mercedes became convinced tomorrow that they could sell more EVs than dino drinkers, that's the direction they'd head. If they can make balls-out concept EVs, then they can make an actual car.

I just (yesterday) found a module with a bright sticker that says PROTOTYPEN in the E-Box of my A8... egads!

But most of them in fact are in that situation. If you want to make no real sysadmin comments, I may well agree, but it doesn't change much.

I don't find it to be ugly, it just looks like another car to me. If you compare it only to the insipid selection of blandmobiles that we get here in the USA, I suppose it looks a little fruity. However, it is definitely better kitted than a base econobox. You can get all the same features on your shitpile, but it will cost more than 10k.

Actually, a lot of people buy an S Class (or the equivalent Audi, a well-kitted A8L) and then put many, many miles on them. It's not a coincidence that there's a bunch of 80's S-Classes with over 300k on them, and 90's S-Classes and A8s with over 200k. These are being driven by businessmen who will be able to write off much of the significant recurring expense of putting many miles on a german car.

In short, these cars are not made worth a fuck. They use components guaranteed to degrade when components which would hold up just fine are available. Rubber bushings (not sure of the material) and EPDM vac hoses when they could be made of polyurethane and silicone respectively and last the life of the vehicle. And everything is crammed into as small a space as possible, because that's how it is today. I have big fat meaty hands, a lot of these cars require me to take some stuff off so that I can take some other stuff off before I can get at a third thing. Even if you have a lift you're best off removing the engine in many cases because you still can't get access otherwise. But sadly, they don't have an engine harness, so you have to disconnect forty things to pull the motor. Perhaps literally; just the coil packs and injectors account for sixteen connectors on a V8.

S-Class and similar are for people with lots of money, and/or people who are playing games with taxes. Not for the plebes. You can own one only if you are a mechanic. The saying is that there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes. The same applies to VAG cars. You can't afford to own an old Audi if you don't turn your own wrenches.

For the money that Mercedes will cost you over its lifetime with major mechanical failures, nickel-and-diming you with electrical problems, et cetera, you could buy a Model S for the weekdays, and a used roadster for the weekend.

I suppose you could also buy a land rover or range rover to go next to the Mercedes. I see that a lot. If you get really lucky they won't both shit themselves at once.