Big crunch.. goodbye, Q5?
02-26-2015, 05:33 PM
#41
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Just heard back from insurance...and my Q5 is totaled. I didn't think that would be the case, but apparently the damage was bad enough. Now I have to decide whether to replace it with the same thing...or if I want to spend and extra ~$10K and bring the S4, A6 and SQ5 into play.
05-21-2015, 12:45 PM
#43
AudiWorld Member
Thread Starter
Hey all, sorry to resurrect a dead thread but I'm finally getting towards the end of the ordeal of car repair and filing the diminished value claim and I thought I'd give an update and share some information about this process some of you may find useful if you're unlucky enough to wind up in this sort of situation.
I picked the car up 8 weeks to the day after the crash. They did a very good job with the repair, I have to say. They did a good job with the repair. The paint and body work is well matched, but there are a few issues here and there- The rear passenger's side door had to be removed, and it's a tiny bit misaligned. The chrome trim is a few millimeters off.. They didn't replace all the diesel and AdBlue stickers in the area of the fuel filler. The gap between the hatch lid and the sheet metal is bigger than it was, and almost worst of all (a huge pet peeve of mine, but nothing anyone would notice) the Q5 and TDI badges aren't quite where they should be... Oh, and it rattles like nothing else over every bump. It stinks of chemicals, and they doused the car in Armor-All (which I can't stand).
It took almost twice as long as they thought, and the damage total ended up being almost $16,000. I paid nothing out of pocket, including my own deductible. Insurance put me in a lovely stripped-out Nissan Altima. It didn't have enough power to get out of its' own way, smelled like a mixture of body odor and wet dog, and had awful eco-friendly tires. Keep in mind that I live in Northern New England and we had record-breaking snowfalls during this time period, and I live on top of a very, very steep hill.
All the whining aside, as far as car accidents go it was a lucky one. He and I were in the right car, and walked away. I was a little bit sore for a day or two, but that's it. I think having my car sitting on a very slippery surface caused it to start sliding as soon as he hit me, which helped diffuse the force of the hit. I keep wondering if his was totaled...
Before I'd even heard whether they'd decided to total or repair it I knew I wasn't going to keep it, and in late February I picked up a '14 Cayenne V6 Platinum Edition. The dealer was getting the updated '15 models in and wanted it gone, so I got a good price on it. It was also dealer-fitted with 21" Turbo S rims, absolutely gorgeous and $4500 I didn't have to spend. Those have ended up causing me a nightmare, entirely due to dealership stupidity, but that's another story. It's a great car, and I love to drive it, but I still think I liked my Q5 better overall. They've both got their benefits and drawbacks, but the Porsche infotainment system is incredibly complicated and distracting (for example) and the (optional) Bose stereo in the Porsche sounds like an iPhone speaker compared to the Bang & Olufsen stereo included with the Q5 Prestige. The stock, basic systems in the '15 A6 loaner car I have today and even my mother's 2015.5 Volvo XC70 sound as good or better than the Bose.
So, with the Q5 back I talked with a friend of mine who is a lawyer, and she helped me through the process. The dealership I bought it from has a body shop with factory trained technicians (maybe I should've brought it there?) and they did a trade-in appraisal, like they would with one you bring on the day you go car shopping. From that, they generally subtract 1/3 of the cost to repair the damage from the trade value. With a signed letter from the dealership stating the appraised value, the loss in value and the final value, we drafted a demand letter to the at-fault driver's insurance company that was sent today. In my case, the stated diminished value was $5000, and the pre-crash value was $38,000.
So, we will see how this continues to pan out. Now comes the hunt for what to replace the Q5 with.
Hopefully there were some helpful insights in there. It was a pain to do, but this (fingers crossed) leaves me with a good car with a surprisingly high trade value (47k miles, thank God I got the TDI!) and the extra cash of the diminished value claim to put towards a replacement. I'll sure miss the Q5, it was my favorite car I ever had, but I don't think the replacement for it will be outside the Audi family... I'm thinking the same badge, but an S instead of a Q...
I picked the car up 8 weeks to the day after the crash. They did a very good job with the repair, I have to say. They did a good job with the repair. The paint and body work is well matched, but there are a few issues here and there- The rear passenger's side door had to be removed, and it's a tiny bit misaligned. The chrome trim is a few millimeters off.. They didn't replace all the diesel and AdBlue stickers in the area of the fuel filler. The gap between the hatch lid and the sheet metal is bigger than it was, and almost worst of all (a huge pet peeve of mine, but nothing anyone would notice) the Q5 and TDI badges aren't quite where they should be... Oh, and it rattles like nothing else over every bump. It stinks of chemicals, and they doused the car in Armor-All (which I can't stand).
It took almost twice as long as they thought, and the damage total ended up being almost $16,000. I paid nothing out of pocket, including my own deductible. Insurance put me in a lovely stripped-out Nissan Altima. It didn't have enough power to get out of its' own way, smelled like a mixture of body odor and wet dog, and had awful eco-friendly tires. Keep in mind that I live in Northern New England and we had record-breaking snowfalls during this time period, and I live on top of a very, very steep hill.
All the whining aside, as far as car accidents go it was a lucky one. He and I were in the right car, and walked away. I was a little bit sore for a day or two, but that's it. I think having my car sitting on a very slippery surface caused it to start sliding as soon as he hit me, which helped diffuse the force of the hit. I keep wondering if his was totaled...
Before I'd even heard whether they'd decided to total or repair it I knew I wasn't going to keep it, and in late February I picked up a '14 Cayenne V6 Platinum Edition. The dealer was getting the updated '15 models in and wanted it gone, so I got a good price on it. It was also dealer-fitted with 21" Turbo S rims, absolutely gorgeous and $4500 I didn't have to spend. Those have ended up causing me a nightmare, entirely due to dealership stupidity, but that's another story. It's a great car, and I love to drive it, but I still think I liked my Q5 better overall. They've both got their benefits and drawbacks, but the Porsche infotainment system is incredibly complicated and distracting (for example) and the (optional) Bose stereo in the Porsche sounds like an iPhone speaker compared to the Bang & Olufsen stereo included with the Q5 Prestige. The stock, basic systems in the '15 A6 loaner car I have today and even my mother's 2015.5 Volvo XC70 sound as good or better than the Bose.
So, with the Q5 back I talked with a friend of mine who is a lawyer, and she helped me through the process. The dealership I bought it from has a body shop with factory trained technicians (maybe I should've brought it there?) and they did a trade-in appraisal, like they would with one you bring on the day you go car shopping. From that, they generally subtract 1/3 of the cost to repair the damage from the trade value. With a signed letter from the dealership stating the appraised value, the loss in value and the final value, we drafted a demand letter to the at-fault driver's insurance company that was sent today. In my case, the stated diminished value was $5000, and the pre-crash value was $38,000.
So, we will see how this continues to pan out. Now comes the hunt for what to replace the Q5 with.
Hopefully there were some helpful insights in there. It was a pain to do, but this (fingers crossed) leaves me with a good car with a surprisingly high trade value (47k miles, thank God I got the TDI!) and the extra cash of the diminished value claim to put towards a replacement. I'll sure miss the Q5, it was my favorite car I ever had, but I don't think the replacement for it will be outside the Audi family... I'm thinking the same badge, but an S instead of a Q...
05-21-2015, 01:34 PM
#44
AudiWorld Expert
05-22-2015, 06:46 AM
#45
AudiWorld Senior Member
Sorry to read about your experience. Hopefully the rest of us don't have to go through anything similar, but thank you for sharing some potentially very useful information. Best of luck with the diminished value claim.
And I vote for replacing the Q with an RS!
And I vote for replacing the Q with an RS!
06-03-2015, 10:35 AM
#48
AudiWorld Member
Thread Starter
So, the story behind the Cayenne!:
I bought it in late February, while the Q5 was in the shop, knowing that even though it wasn't totaled that I'd still be replacing it.
I found a beautiful Mahogany metallic '14 Cayenne Platinum Edition V6, fell in love, and wound up buying it. The car had 21" GTS rims on it, which probably had a lot to do with my love at first sight. Anyway, I took delivery of the car at which time they told me it only had one key, so they wrote a We Owe slip for the reprogramming for when the second key came in.
Several days after I got the car I was reading the window sticker and noticed that the car came equipped with 19" rims from the factory, explaining why the speedometer was off by a few MPH. I asked the salesman, who said they were put on to sweeten the deal for a previously interested buyer. Ok, whatever.
Due to the incredibly snowy winter we had, I didn't drive the car on a daily basis for the first few weeks (luckily, my dad was away and let me borrow his A8 for the snowy days). Once it warmed up a bit, I quickly racked up the miles. Currently, I'm towards the end of renovating a house and selling it, so I've been commuting from Central NH to Portland, ME several times per week. At about 6000 miles, I noticed that the tires were already worn out. The fronts had some tread, but the rears were literally racing slicks. I checked the tire pressure, and the tires were all inflated between 8-12 PSI over what they should have been. I let the air out to the specified "comfort" setting for the rims, and reprogrammed the car to let it know which wheels were on it- Things the dealer should have taken care of.
It took several weeks to actually get an appointment to get the car in- Ignored emails and voicemails, no return calls, etc. I filed a complaint with Porsche about it (as the car had also once shut off while in motion with no warning while exiting the highway) and I heard from the dealership the next day. I finally managed to get an appointment (a week after they initially responded following the complaint) and they took the car in. I showed the tires to the service advisor, who said it was an obvious defect and that he would talk to sales about buying me a new set of tires because it clearly wasn't my fault.
The next day, they called to say there wasn't anything wrong with the car and that the bare rear tires were due to my "aggressive driving style".. It was a V6, not exactly a rocket ship, and I did almost all highway driving. I asked the service advisor if he had any idea how cars work. Suspiciously, he offered to refer me to sales so I could trade into something similar. I refused, walked away, and refused to even buy new tires from them.
Shortly after, I took it to the other Audi/Porsche dealer here in NH. Immediately, the salesman looking at the car said the same thing that I (along with many other people who saw the tires and heard the story) said.. Does he even know what he's talking about? Aggressive driving, especially on an AWD car, wouldn't cause the rear tires to wear completely flat evenly and still have treads on the front. It was obvious overinflation.
To make a long story short, Porsche Corporate received its' third complaint in a month from me regarding that dealership. I ended up trading it (losing some money, but overall worth it) for a CPO 2012 Cayenne S with air suspension, natural leather interior, tons of options you never see on a Cayenne and only 6k miles more than I had on the 2014! It's a much better and very different car, it feels very solid, and the dealership isn't shady.
Now, on to the project of replacing the Q5... I've decided that an S5 coupe, 6-speed, is the perfect replacement/garage mate for the Cayenne. Stay tuned, and thank you all for your help and suggestions through this process. I'm still waiting to hear about the diminished value settlement, but I wouldn't have known such a thing existed without the help of this forum.
I bought it in late February, while the Q5 was in the shop, knowing that even though it wasn't totaled that I'd still be replacing it.
I found a beautiful Mahogany metallic '14 Cayenne Platinum Edition V6, fell in love, and wound up buying it. The car had 21" GTS rims on it, which probably had a lot to do with my love at first sight. Anyway, I took delivery of the car at which time they told me it only had one key, so they wrote a We Owe slip for the reprogramming for when the second key came in.
Several days after I got the car I was reading the window sticker and noticed that the car came equipped with 19" rims from the factory, explaining why the speedometer was off by a few MPH. I asked the salesman, who said they were put on to sweeten the deal for a previously interested buyer. Ok, whatever.
Due to the incredibly snowy winter we had, I didn't drive the car on a daily basis for the first few weeks (luckily, my dad was away and let me borrow his A8 for the snowy days). Once it warmed up a bit, I quickly racked up the miles. Currently, I'm towards the end of renovating a house and selling it, so I've been commuting from Central NH to Portland, ME several times per week. At about 6000 miles, I noticed that the tires were already worn out. The fronts had some tread, but the rears were literally racing slicks. I checked the tire pressure, and the tires were all inflated between 8-12 PSI over what they should have been. I let the air out to the specified "comfort" setting for the rims, and reprogrammed the car to let it know which wheels were on it- Things the dealer should have taken care of.
It took several weeks to actually get an appointment to get the car in- Ignored emails and voicemails, no return calls, etc. I filed a complaint with Porsche about it (as the car had also once shut off while in motion with no warning while exiting the highway) and I heard from the dealership the next day. I finally managed to get an appointment (a week after they initially responded following the complaint) and they took the car in. I showed the tires to the service advisor, who said it was an obvious defect and that he would talk to sales about buying me a new set of tires because it clearly wasn't my fault.
The next day, they called to say there wasn't anything wrong with the car and that the bare rear tires were due to my "aggressive driving style".. It was a V6, not exactly a rocket ship, and I did almost all highway driving. I asked the service advisor if he had any idea how cars work. Suspiciously, he offered to refer me to sales so I could trade into something similar. I refused, walked away, and refused to even buy new tires from them.
Shortly after, I took it to the other Audi/Porsche dealer here in NH. Immediately, the salesman looking at the car said the same thing that I (along with many other people who saw the tires and heard the story) said.. Does he even know what he's talking about? Aggressive driving, especially on an AWD car, wouldn't cause the rear tires to wear completely flat evenly and still have treads on the front. It was obvious overinflation.
To make a long story short, Porsche Corporate received its' third complaint in a month from me regarding that dealership. I ended up trading it (losing some money, but overall worth it) for a CPO 2012 Cayenne S with air suspension, natural leather interior, tons of options you never see on a Cayenne and only 6k miles more than I had on the 2014! It's a much better and very different car, it feels very solid, and the dealership isn't shady.
Now, on to the project of replacing the Q5... I've decided that an S5 coupe, 6-speed, is the perfect replacement/garage mate for the Cayenne. Stay tuned, and thank you all for your help and suggestions through this process. I'm still waiting to hear about the diminished value settlement, but I wouldn't have known such a thing existed without the help of this forum.
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