[BiturboS4] Audi dealer services in the west

[John M. Harrison]

Hi Ken and the list,

I sympathize and agree in general - the service availability and attitude out here in the west is weird.  I am resigned to playing their game completely.  I have to go to Fort Collins, have my wife drive down a separate car along with me and leave the S4 for how ever long it takes.  I had the washer pump thing fixed and left it for a couple days to do this.  It seems nothing is easy on these things.  It is probably best not to depend on an S4 as your only vehicle just because of the need to leave it for service at a distance for a period of time occasionally.

Having said that, I always give the dealership high marks in the follow-up phone interview that Audi America always does as long as the work has been done.  I've only had very minor things and they have always fixed them successfully.

BMW and Mercedes would be the same situation for me here in Laramie - nearest dealers are in northern Colorado.  In hindsight the S4 was a bargain relative to these.  And they are both bigger and uglier as is the new S4 IMHO.  A MiniCooper S looks like fun.  None of these has all-wheel drive, though.

I got a weird marketing survey phone call from Audi a while ago, too.  I suffered through it, but it really made me wonder about Audi's priorities with all these phone calls and surveys.  The nature of the questions put me off - all about imagery, emotive connections and reasons you would or would not purchase a car unrelated to the design of the vehicle.  Somehow this is backwards.  Perhaps I'm naïve, but I would like to think that Audi's designers are producing a product that fills functional and engineering criteria first with marketing considerations aimed at moving a truly well engineered product to a tech-savvy customer.  I perceived the Audi line as having less in the way of stylistic affectation than BMW and most others.  I don't understand putting wood in a contemporary vehicle, for example.  I was lucky to stumble on an S4 with aluminum trim.

And I do love the car.  It is very fun to drive, tight, firm, the best performing and feeling car I've ever owned.  I had it up on the dirt county and Forest Service roads east of town in the Medicine Bow National Forest earlier this week.  It is perfect for these roads with the Quattro drive.  I'm definitely keeping it, but have concerns about the life span with the turbos and highly complex mechanicals.  It's an engineering marvel, but also a potential nightmare of complexity - all held together by the miracle of modern microprocessor control systems.

There is a Subaru dealer here in Laramie and a Honda dealer.  My next (additional) car might be either a WRX full race job at 300+ hp that should stomp the S4 for only about $32,000 or a Honda Civic Hybrid if I decide to be socially responsible for a mere $22,000 or so.  So where are the high-performance all-electrics we should be seeing by now?

Anyhow, there's my vehicular rant for this Fri.  Cheers.  A good weekend to all.  Enjoy a nice drive.

John M. Harrison
2001 S4 Avant 6 speed silver loaded
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming


-----Original Message-----
From: ken kgrant [mailto:kaspgr at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 10:41 AM
To: biturbos4 at audifans.com
Cc: biturbos4 at audifans.com
Subject: RE: [BiturboS4] New S4 owner

just moved to cornhusker state (lincoln, nebraska)
from indiana.  the nearest dealer is 50 miles away and
the highgest octane i can get here is 91.  :-(

i just called the dealer (olsen in omaha) to make an
appt. for an oil change and also to take a look at the
headlight wiper fluid pump.  the service manager said
they can only do oil change on saturdays and he can
only take a look at pump on weekdays.  i called up
audi usa and they gave some lame ass excuse as their
dealers are indpenedent etc.

i was seriously thinking of an upgrade to the new s4.
now i am thinking of a bimmer or a merc.  i like my s4
but the pontiac attitude of the dealers and audi usa
really sucks.

ken






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