Dealer Experiences

[Markarina]

both Good and Bad .....

The worst I've had is a main dealer telling me that the intermittent operation of one of the console lights (bottom right of the tacho) was caused by broken filament in the bulb and the ends making occasional contact nothing to do with them taking it out a week earlier...

A couple of good incidents, is when it's been in to investigate a problem, given a courtesy car, gone back at the end of the day, couldn't find the problem but no charge anyway.

Anybody else got good or bad stories ?

[mcandmar]

No dealer has ever gotten its greesy mits on mine. I did call into one to buy a part once and came away a free set of mats and roof antenna

[Ski]

bad :

Gave my car to have the window frame fitted. gave me my car back and said "sorry we cannot fit it, and we dont know why its the corect audi part but.." "that will be £80 plz.. ohh.. and we scratched your tints to bits, however we dont do tints so you fix them yourself"

Gave them my audi 80 to change rear brakes. came back with shoe prints on back seat.

Good experience :

None. ohh.. i got a free coffee.

[s2driveruk]

Not on my S2 thankfully but our A6.......18 months, 3 visits, £300 lighter, car muching through the header tank of coolant in 200 miles and being told....no gasket failure, no leaks, nothing showing on the compression test.

Audiman is now doing a complete engine rebuild (re-faced block and head) due to the amount of time this has been going on and the mess it made of the block, there is something like 14,000th/in taken of the head and block in total meaning alsorts of sh*t having to be worked through in terms in ensuring no contact with piston and valve as the gasket thickness is not enough to make up the difference......

I await a bill close to £2k and no thanks to Audi how told me that first it was the turbo seal (not water cooled , the cap on the header tank etc etc) Dare I say that it was their 'Master' Tech who came up with those......

If you have a fleet car and a PHH type card then Audi service is probably fine.....failing that if you are Joe Public then you wonder quite how they justify £117.50 per hour.

[AUDI9020V]

audi york are ok they take time to help you out never let em touch mine.

[hiltoa]

Huddersfield Audi very helpful when my A4's oil pressure warning came on a couple of days after buying the car from a non-dealership - I was driving past at the time and stopped the car in the dealer's car park in a panic! Service manager went and had a chat with chief mech for advice, & even tried to phone through to Grimsby Audi (where it had a FASH from) to see if the fault had been mentioned at the last service (700 miles earlier), if it had, I may have some comeback... ...unfortunately, with it being a Saturday, he couldn't get through, so I tentatively drove home.

Rang Grimsby Audi, spoke to their Service Manager, and again very helpful - knew the car and gave me a bit of it's recent (extensive and expensive!) history. Unfortunately, the oil pressure issue was a new one on him (I only mentioned it after he'd briefed me on the car :mischeif: ).

Still doing the oil pump myself though - I trust my work more than a possible Audi trainee, and I get my time at cost

Plus I get to know the car better, for when the fixing turns to modding... Gotta be able to catch those old 5 pots!

[s2dude]

I've never had any work done by the SHeffield Audi dealer (do it myself rather than pay them!) but I did win an award last month for:

"BIGGEST PARTS SPEND BY A NON COMMERCIAL CUSTOMER FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS"

which I was quite chuffed with.
As an award they gave me another £150 invoice :mischeif:

JK re the award obviously!!

but seriously......there are several clueless numpties behind the parts desk who are starting to get the correct parts on the odd order!!! (now I go in with exact PN's and family album refs!!!)

but one guy there steve is **** hot...really really super helpful....and ALWAYS gets the right parts first time.
I would defo buy a car form there if I had the cash.....(they have a sensual RS4 on the forecourt at the moment,,,,only £54,000 )

[Chris M]

Huddersfield Audi should be clued up on the S2 what with me spending plending there and explaining it wasn't a A2 variant.

[hiltoa]

As an award they gave me another £150 invoice :mischeif:

Leeds Audi 'rewarded' me with a £191.46 invoice today...

[curlyks2]

Good:

1. The main dealer to whom I went to have fault codes read and cleared. Read and cleared the fault codes, identified the problem, quoted me a price to fix the problem, and I was gone within an hour. Got coffee too.

2. The main dealer who put together the spare bulb kit for me. One phone call, called in 4 days later, picked up the bulbs and paid, all correct and was there for no more than 10 minutes.

Bad:

1. The main stealer who I contacted first to try and get a spare bulb kit put together. They didn't know what an S2 was (kept correcting me to A2 S-Line). Once I'd convinved them that the car actually existed, they then denied all knowledge that S2's ever came with the elipsoid headlights with the little lever adjustment for driving on the continent. Didn't ever manage to persuade them otherwise, so called a different dealer (see point 2 under Good above).

2. The idiot unprofessional stupid main stealer who couldn't diagnose a fault, needlessly replaced parts, and towards the end of their run of garbage, couldn't even fit the undertray. The mechanic who attempted to fit the undertray admitted to me afterwards he'd never even seen an S2 before. The undertray was just hanging off - it was visibly not right just walking back to the car from reception. As to the other stuff, since I wasn't about to just bend over and take it, several complaints were made and meetings had with their waste-of-skin Customer Relations Executive were had. They ended up correcting all their work (verified by another non-main-stealer mechanic), not charging me for the corrective work, and not charging me for other work worth c. £800 (which meant I came out ahead). This particular dealer subsequently changed hands completely, is under new ownership and new management, and changed its' name.

Ck.

[geryS2]

"2. The idiot unprofessional stupid main stealer "

i like , this should be the standard name for car dealers !!

[Markarina]

"2. The idiot unprofessional stupid main stealer "

i like , this should be the standard name for car dealers !!

A little unfair, based on some of the comments in this post, you do get the impression that on a service side main dealers don't have the skills to work on non-current production models.

That said having somebody like Ben who knows his stuff on here is a real bonus for us all

[fivepotnoodle]

Good

New dealers I use.
Parts epartment guy knows the car, is a complete Audi nut himself and never fails to find the part I want, even if I say I have part number he insists on looking himself just to make sure.
I won't use them for servicing/repairs though, as I watched (well, saw and heard the hassle) a young trainee drop an 8mm socket, along with his ballpoint pens cap down the plug hole of a 2001 S4 .

Bad

Old dealers that I will never use again.
1/ Had a stiff gear change and sometimes the gearstick wouldn't jump back up after being in reverse. They wanted £3k+ for a new gearbox + £1k to fit it after spending 2 hours diagnosing the problem. Problem was down the the plastic ball and socket type shift mechanism under the gearstick boot needed greasing. A cool £zero compared to their £4.5k.
2/ Telling me that because the lights on the image of the difflock had failed, would mean that the rear difflock would be on all the time and I would break it.
3/ Telling me the fluttering type noise I could hear was a broken wastegate which would cost £1k to replace. Was of course a split rubber flap in the throttle cut off valve.
4/ Telling me the spark plugs should be replaced annually, ok maybe true if I do 60k miles a year The car only has 47k on it!
5/ Telling me that the bulbs on the rear of the instrument binnacle cound not be replaced, I'd have to replace the whole effected gauge.
6/ Ripping off one of my mudflaps on the rear by reversing onto a kerb, then not telling me about, then imforming me they are now obsolete and nothing they can do (I luckily found some NOS ones on ebay)
7/ Denting and bending the cill on the underside of the car by jacking it up in the wrong place, then not telling me about it.
8/ Letting the jack down on the rear of the car after having two tyres fitted, no big problem unless you forget to put one of the wheels back on
9/ Charging me £37.89 to fit a highbeam light bulb.

But, I digress, guess I shouldn't complain as I might be called narrow minded

[Graham]

Funny:
When my car had to go through its Australian transport inspection, the inspector wanted me to take the car to Audi OZ to find the engine number as i didnt know at the time where it was, i went to the dealers with the car and stood leaning against the front bumper asking them to find the engine number, they tried to tell me it isnt an Audi, they have not seen one so it must be a mock up, this car does not exist-and they were being serious . The fact it had audi badges from *****hole to elbow and a manual with the car (Which also had the engine number position in it), just a say convinced them and i got a whooooooo, this is nice, not seen any of these before, what couldnt you afford the 6th cylinder jokes . Needless to say i think i will keep it well away from there
Fek me i have been driving a mirage for the last 5 years.

[LHD_Kid]

Main dealer, Scorpion Audi , Focsani, Romania...

Took my 2001 2.5 TDI A6 for a full service and cambelt, said "how much for a full service...everything included...?" Answer after 5 minutes on computer..." would you like the oil changed sir...?"
Say no more...
Audi Dealer in Canterbury is very helpful, had to buy a couple of parts fro LHD A4, he got the right parts straight away, and from stock...

Best dealer for parts and advice....? Ben, S2 Avant.... No question...