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

[Quincy Chiang]

That has been a known failure for a few years now, there's even a website dedicated to that, e46 owners would share their horror engine blowing stores on there.  I too am impressed about BMW's extended warranty on it.

The difference between that and our S4 (specifically the B5) is that you can't do a whole lot to the M3 engine, at least not easily anyways.  But you can easily chip the 2.7t and get another 100 ft-lb of torque our of it, which in theory can cause all kinds of extra stress on different components.

AoA isn't completely all bad, didn't they just recently acknowledged the oil sludge issue on the 1.8t and extended the drive train warranty on all 1.8t cars from '98 to '04?  That's not too bad if you ask me.

Quincy

----- Original Message -----
From: Rich Shiba <rich at pdi.com>
Date: Monday, December 6, 2004 5:05 pm
Subject: Re: [Biturbos4] Re: Screwed over by Audi or service dealer

> I've got a couple of friends with E46 M3's.  They've had way more 
> problemswith 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 
> issuesthat 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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> > Biturbos4 at www.audifans.com
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> > 
> 
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