Audi Customer Service DIS vs Suburu

[Larry C Leung]

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Well I can regal a story of a fellow Audi owner (MAC ' 93 100CSQA) who
recently purchased a new Sube Legacy GT. The car is fine, the service...

1 - Car was a demo with 8K, titled new.

2 - car was poorly prepped, floor mats soiled, was promised new mats,
never got them.

3 - Within the 1st day, noticed trim pieces missing on the back doors,
called the salesman, he said "that's not my problem" and transfered me to
the service desk instead of intervening. Problem was solved by service,
but bad feelings ensued.

4 - Car ended up loosing a 1 sq in patch of paint from the plastic rocker
panel in the pressure car wash. This was taken care of properly at the
dealer (including loaner car), but at the same time the dealer said "that
happens" which isn't IMHO a promising thought.

5 - Finds out the "free oil-change" mandatorily included a $55 service
charge (to rotate tires, check fluids etc). Now, not happy.

6 - When he requested that they (while they were doing his "free
oil-change) install his mounted snowies to the car he gets this speal:

- "these rims won't fit" says the service department (though admittedly,
and sadly, mounted tires from Discount Tire Direct don't come on
hub-centric steel rims. Unfortnuately the tires he wanted (Yoko Guardex)
weren't availible from TireRack.

- dealership determined that the car was out of alignment (inside edge of
the tires were worn). This, on a car that was CERTIFIED to be fully
checked out by the dealer as a refurbed demo car.

- and determined that there was a bent rim (again, on a supposedly
checked out car). This was after 7K of clean highway driving, where
neither he, nor the wife had ever driven into anything. They are both
sensible drivers.

So - he, needing the car, allows them to align the car (on the pricey
side), they supposedly align the car. He goes to pick it up and the tech
says he "can't get it totally aligned, MUST be a bent strut, you'll need
a new strut, spring and shock mount and of course, a new rim."  My friend
argues, HOW could the rim be bent on the INSIDE from driving (his roads
really are smooth and he didn't get forced off by  wayward animal/car
etc). He drives off, mounted his snowies himself and calls Subie NA with
the situation. They said, after discussing the thing with the dealer that
the problem was my friend's problem., too bad.
My friend goes to his independant mechanic, whom gets the car perfectly
aligned, no bent strut. The rim was still bent of course, but still runs
true.

Needless to say, the tech was incompetent (can't align the car?) and so
was the service, instead of supporting the customer ends up supporting
the dealer.. My friend is not unreasonable, so guess who must be....

LL - NY





From: "RM" <waves at epix.net>
To: "Quattro List" <quattro at audifans.com>
Subject: Audi Customer DIS-Service/Warning/timing belts
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 18:17:16 -0500

Let me preface this by saying I love Audi cars. I own them, I sell them
and
I repair them. I'd never consider anything else when it comes to all
wheel
drive no matter how good of a deal it was. However, what happened this
morning was proof that VW/Audi of America has allot of work to do in the
public relations business.

A good customer of mine had her car towed in yesterday. It's a 1998 A4q
1.8
turbo with **62k miles** on it. The timing belt had stripped, effectively
bending valves. The car is a non-tiptronic automatic and the lady drives
very sensibly. Audi has a 3 year 50k mile powertrain warranty, and
recommends that the timing belt be replaced every **105k miles.**  My
customer bought this car from us a little over a year ago. We had bought
it
directly from Audi Financial Services, Audi's lease company.

I called the local Audi dealer first. They told me that they have been
seeing a rash of timing belt/tensioner failures with all 1.8t's and 2.0
VW's
that use the new style automatic tensioners. The told me to call Audi NA
and
explain what happened and sometimes they offer assistance. I then called
Audi's toll free customer center and was greeted by a lady. I calmly
explained the situation. I presented it in a polite way, didn't ask for
any
help and didn't demand a thing. I had expected this approach would yield
some sort of condolence at the very least. Maybe by chance I'd be asked
what
they could do to help? The first words I heard were, "tell your customer
the
first problem is she bought the car from an independant car dealer." She
went on to explain that if she had purchased the car from a legit. Audi
dealer, that Audi might have offered compensation for the early failure
of
the timing belt, even though she was not the original owner. How about
that....

I explained that the belt would have failed no matter who sold the car,
or
who worked on it. I also said the local Audi dealer has seen an unusual
number of failed belts as well. "Well sir, apparently your customer
didn't
follow proper maintenance procedures, or you failed to notice that the
belt
was about to break".  That sent me over the edge. I went on to tell her
we've been in the Audi and VW repair business since 1975, I'm Bosch and
ASE
certified and that I personally inspected the belt 6 months ago, and now,
and it still looks fine. There was no indication that this belt was going
to
fail and furthermore, based on Audi's printed claim that these belts do
not
need replacment unti the 105k mile mark, why should I suspect it? She
huffed
there is nothing Audi will do. My last words were... "It's not wonder
people
buy Lexus and BMW's, their customer service is allot better.