[Biturbos4] Re: Screwed over by Audi or service dealer

[Rich Shiba]

I've got a couple of friends with E46 M3's.  They've had way more problems
with the actual build quality of the cars than i've had with my B5 S4, but
check this out.  One of them got a letter from BMW North America saying a
problem was found in their manufacturing process that could cause rod
bearings in some engines to fail under some very rare situation (don't
quote me, going from my memory of what he told me).  They took his car for
a week, gave him a loaner and rebuilt his engine at no charge, plus extended
the warranty for another year.  My other friend had a laundry list of things
that went wrong with the car (some minor, some moderate) and he wrote a
letter to BMW complaining.  They offered to either give him his money back
minus a "usage fee" or to replace it with a new/current one.

Now i'm sure there are BMW nightmare stories too, and i've been happy with
my S4, but i can't imagine AoA owning up to their own problems like that.


<riiing>

me: "Hello??"

caller : "Sir, this is Gunter from AoA.  Our records indicate you own a
B5 S4. We've determined that the KO3 turbo's had some lubrication issues
that caused them to fail prematurely in certain cases, so we'd like you
to take your car to the nearest dealer so we can upgrade you to KO4's.
We'll pick up the bill and extend your warranty, just in case."

me: "Nice...thanks! I love my Audi!"


On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, David Lau wrote:

> This is SO like my experience, and SO like how I felt. If only AOA 
> would listen to how they're alienating their customer base:
> 
> My dealer threatened to charge me ($2500+) to repair a toasted synchro 
> at 45kmi because I admitted I'd chipped the vehicle. "How is a chip 
> going to affect the longevity of a synchro" I asked. "You modified the 
> vehicle" they claimed. "The manual says you can't do that". I couldn't 
> find anything relevant to that in the warranty language. I pointed out 
> to them the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and language that SEMA promotes 
> that it's up to the mfr to prove that a failure was the result of the 
> mod. They didn't care. Then I told my salesman how bad this tasted and 
> how this hurt his ability to sell cars. He went to the service dept on 
> my behalf but was told to "stay out of it". The next day the Service 
> Mgr called to report that "AOA and Howard Cooper Audi had graciously 
> agreed to repair the transmission for free as a  "1 time good will 
> extension of my warranty".
> 
> I had to smile and thank them while thinking very different thoughts. 
> Sure, I was quite pleased to save money, but would they agree to basic 
> engineering logic, or the law? Not on your warranty! If they had, their 
> "goodwill gesture" would have earned some goodwill!
> 
> Now I too would need some major coaxing to buy another Audi. Or at 
> least take my lesson that next time I need warranty service I've got to 
> lie through my teeth about mods! Quite sad.
> 
> DL
> 
> On Dec 6, 2004, at 5:51 PM, ken kgrant wrote:
> 
> > this has really tainted my audi experience.
> > No more audis for me, which is unfortunate because, it
> > is a good car. 
> >  
> 
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