Audi dealer inspires confidence

[rtg0616]

Took my RS2 over to my local dealer twice a few weeks back, I needed a few new parts that I couldn't find on ETKA. On the first visit I took the parts guy outside to point out what I needed. The first guys walks over and says,

"Blimey mate you've done alot to this, haven't you!"

Of course I said "No mate, it's an RS2 it's standard"

The second parts guy comes out and the conversation goes,

"How did you manage to fit Porsche brakes to it?"

"It's an RS2 - they're standard".

"Oh, I've not seen one of these before!"

I then go inside and enquire about the price of a major service. Wish I hadn't, it took them 20 minutes to identify the car and come up with a price. I finished off asking them to list what they carried out on the service, threw the entire service dept into termoil! The short answer was obviously NO! I walked out after 25 minutes.

Doesn't it just sum them up!!! Splitters.

[volcano rs]

why would one wants to go to them muppets first place .its the last place you go to .

[rotoryboy]

Don't tar all the dealers with the same brush. We use Stockton Audi and they know what an S2/RS2 is, and give us a nice bit of discount thank you very much

[volcano rs]

i took my quattro to main stealers a few years back it had a cold start problem .left it with them over night they gave me a list of things that were faulty
cold start valve £150
ecu about £600
injectors £150
metering head about £500 exchange
paid them £70 for there diagnostic charge took the car to an experienced mechanic who phoned me 2 hours later to say the car was sorted it was a tempreture sensor £18 + £20 labour .lost trust with them ever since. :

[iain1067]

One of the biggest problems is that most of the techs who work in the dealer network now have never been trained on the older cars, Audi don't retro train so to speak, it's almost got too much reliance on the 1551 machine and hey ho swap a part too. However some of the older guys are still very very good it all depends who you have locally.

Iain

[volcano rs]

very true older guys know their stuff they've been there done it .when they give you a list this long it makes you wonder you dont have to know anything about cars to swap things around and hopefully cure the problem .

[rotoryboy]

some of the older guys are still very very good it all depends who you have locally.

Iain

This is generally why VW/Audi specialists are better. They are normally run/owned by people that know what they are doing and care. Which is always a good thing

[neebover]

Took my S2 to Autovolks, local independent VW/Audi specialist to check a running fault. The older more experienced mechanic there spent 2 hours trying to find the fault/s. Came back as ok, but as soon as I started car it was still rough. Then took it to a small side street garage, where it was code read and got a lambda fault and air mass meter fault within 10 minutes for £10!!!

[towerhurst]

This is generally why VW/Audi specialists are better. They are normally run/owned by people that know what they are doing and care. Which is always a good thing

We get lots of cars in all the time that Audi have wrongly diagnosed with so called £1200 turbo faults that turn out to be breather problems & £800-1000 ecu faults that turn out to be a£8.50 temp sender ,i think Audi should get its act together

[s2avant]

The problem stems from the pressure to sell workshop hours. Diagnostics doesn't make anywhere near the money that servicing and related work can. Technicians are discouraged from spending too long working out what the problem is.

Couple this to the fact that fewer and fewer properly skilled mechanics are retained by the dealer network (where do you think all these independant specialists come from) and your left with garages full of service monkeys that haven't got a clue if the diagnostics computer doesn't spell it out for them.

You can't lay all the blame on the technicians or the dealership as it is based in the politics of the motor trade and is not unique to Audi.

Having said that I work for a group of main dealers (but not at one anymore) and absolutely will NOT let ANY of our branches touch my Avant for ANY job. In fact none of the lads in my office will take their cars to them either.

Ben

[jubjub]

My new RS recently - depending on your definition of recent,it was 2years ago but only done 1500 miles since so I call that recent - was in at the same Audi dealer were it has been serviced since new.
It had a road report of some fault, and resulted in a brand new turbo and ECU being fitted.Must have been some fault. However I am not complaining

[volcano rs]

well whats going to happen to them eventually ? they are going to go bust .only people who go to dealers are those who think that the dealers are the best because they deal in and sell those type of cars. i know people at dealerships who tell me that they dont even change oil on some cars but still charge them for full service i know a chap who was charged for certain bushes on his car when he checked they hadn't been touched .its best to find a reliable mechanic and stick with him if you can't do the job yourself .

[curlyks2]

Had very mixed experiences of Audi dealers...

One denied all knowledge that the S2 was even a valid car, and then when convinced that they did exist, denied that any of them ever had the little lever on the headlights to convert for European driving. (All I wanted was a full spare bulb kit, in a hurry, to pick up while driving by. You would think that an Audi dealer would be the best place to get all the bulbs, since they know what a given Audi model requires. Right? Wrong.)

One did such a bad job of putting the undertray back on after an oil change (I was desperate and out of options) that I could see one of the bolts hanging off in the wheel arch. Took a couple of pictures (luckily had my camera with me) and raised merry hell. Wrote (afterwards) to both the dealer in question and main customer services. In the end (as unofficial "compensation") the dealer "forgot" to charge me for over £700 worth of work, but I never heard anything from central customer services. The "Customer Care Executive" at that dealer was also a complete waste of space and money - why bother employing someone in that role unless there are so many p!ssed off customers that it's needed? (Interestingly, that dealership is now under complete new management and a new owner.)

On the flip side, one dealer has been repeatedly brilliant: knows absolutely what an S2 is, didn't charge me for sticking the car on the diagnostics to read fault codes, and simply told me what was wrong and a price for fixing it (which wasn't much different to an independant garage in this case).

Ck.