rbats

Let me start by saying I absolutely love my A7. Great car that gets a lot of compliments and is fun to drive.

However, today I had something happen that makes me question the safety of these things. I got home from work last night, parked the car in the garage, and went about dinner, etc. My wife went back in to the garage a little later and had this overpowering smell of gasoline hit her. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from. No puddles under the car so we thought it was the gas containers we had for our snow blower/lawn mower that were "leaking". Put them out overnight and let the garage air out. Smell disappeared by around midnight.

This morning, the car wouldn't start -- it would try to turn over, finally do so and shut off a couple of seconds after. After trying to start it a couple of times, I got out of the car and smelled this horrible stench of gasoline -- it was overpowering. I knew something was wrong but I didn't spot a leak on the garage floor. Called Audi Roadside assistance and dealer and they both said to not drive the car and have it towed. When the tow guy came, we had to try to start the car again to get it out of the garage and put it in neutral. That's when the thing just gushed gas from under the hood -- gas everywhere including all over the driveway. The tow guy said we should be glad this did not happen on the highway or have the thing explode on us -- yikes!! He loaded the car (scraped the bottom in the process!) and took it to the dealership.

Dealer called later and said they found the problem -- it was a fuel injector seal leak. Not knowing what this was and a little worried about the safety of this thing, I drove down to the dealer to take a look for myself. They had taken the whole engine/piston thing apart. This wasn't a rubber tube or something like that that had ripped. I'm not a mechanical guy, but looked like a major component that had this issue. Gas was puddled everywhere in the engine bay/hood!! Even the engineer there said who knows what the gas will do to all the parts in the hood. He said this was very disturbing given the seriousness of fuel leaks in cars in general. No kidding! Even though I fully respect and trust the mechanics working on this problem, who is to say one of the other seals won't leak?

Bottom line is, WTF?! An 80K car with such a serious problem in 6 months!! And how do I trust driving it anymore? Even though they say they'll fix it, it doesn't exude much confidence when they also say be glad I wasn't on the expressway or that thankfully it didn't combust. Not to mention what all the gas is going to do in the engine bay/hood -- hopefully it evaporates, but is there damage already done? I will be calling Audi corporate to report this as I'm not sure I would feel safe driving it anymore -- not when I have two kids that I have to transport around.

Just thought all should know about this and wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this. Sorry for the rant. At least now I have it documented!

Chuckster

WOW,glad you are ok, cars can always be replaced. Keep us posted after you talk to Audi corp.

dht34

Glad everything is OK. Seems the new A6 is having similar issues.

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...2#post24281142

The G Man

Two different problems, one is a fuel pump leak and the other is a fuel injector leak.

RM5

My problem is not similar to the A7, since mine was all at the fuel tank.I just hope this is fixed and my car does not stink like fuel inside
As for the brakes I think I will try to "bed" the pads in by doing few 60 to 10 hard slow downs see if that helps. the car has 700 miles already on it.
I had the car all set to go to the detailer and get the clearbra put on the entire front.

dht34

Didn't see that. Lol. Must have been late, my eyes just saw fuel and leak.

Either way a problem for Audi. I'm still weary about Audi dependability, my current and first Audi has suffered through a broken fuel injector pump (shop repair for 3 days, under warranty repair). It currently suffers from excessive oil lost, needing a quart of oil q 3-4k miles. I'm wanting to give Audi another try but these issues don't sound encouraging.

The G Man

Since your car had a gas leak, I would ask the dealer to detail your car for you and get rid of the smell.

FSport21

Listen, I love the Audi A7 - and I almost bought one. It's a phenomenal car on a number of accounts, especially in regards to design. The problem with Audis is simply the reliability aspect.

Unfortunately, no automaker surpasses the Japanese when it comes to craftsmanship. I just bought a 2013 Lexus GS F Sport, and I love it. The reliability, performance, technology, design, all make it number one for me. And considering you're having a problem with your A7, I thought I would recommend a potential alternative.

iewsemaj

I would never park that in my driveway. Make my property value go down.

The G Man

I had a 2008 GS350 AWD, that car was the worst car I have ever owned as far as reliability. I had it for one years and it spended close to 2 months in the shop. Just goes to show you, there is no guarantee in life, even if the car is made in Japan. BTW, I test drove the GS350 a few weeks ago, nice handling car, not as quick as the A6, the front end is too JC whitney for me.