pbcsd

So hand washed my car yesterday morning, everything was good. Drove to the mall to renew my license plate, got there, parked, walked out of my car and (as usual) turned around to look at it.

WTF? There's a hole in my fender! The passenger side lower fender grill is missing?

Drove to Audi, they said "weird, must have come loose in a car wash or something". Not covered, so $80 or whatever later, have one on order.

Anyone else have this happen?

RCM09

Not surprised...I just changed out my fog lights and they popped out with out much effort. Far easier than my Q5 and my wife's A4.

LeadToRome

Geez if it's that easy I guess I'll go get a new lens for the one I have that's cracked! (guess a rock got it)

jimf15e

Funny, mine fell out the other day too but it was the driver's side. Surprised that the passenger side fell off-I couldn't get that one out for the life of me when changing my fog light bulbs.

S4Tokyo

Seems a design / part manufacture flaw....have read several similar stories in past 18 months. Similar happened to me although I saw the looseness, discovered one of the 'clips' used for fixing it was damaged / warped, couldn't correct it myself, asked Audi for replacement and was done no questions asked. Not sure why your Dealer didn't cover it under warranty. In summary, the clip design used for securing can get damaged / broken, I assume during car build (a rough insertion force would be enough to cause the problem).

Ciao

pbcsd

Beats me why they didn't cover it under warranty, they just claimed it wasn't a warrantable item to which I responded "so if other parts of the car just start falling off and I can't find them that's not warrantable either?".

To be frank, I've been less than impressed with the Audi service dealer I go to thus far. May have to change to another, though less convenient from a distance standpoint.

redrocker55

My round tow point access cover in the front bumper was missing. Dealership told me people steal those sometimes. They had to order the part, paint it and snap it back in...$60.00.

pbcsd

Picked up the part this morning. Brought it home as the dealership wanted $65 of labour to install it (really??). Popped her in, and sure enough, a gentle tug was all it took to pull it back out. The driver side is firmly in there and even with a firm tug wouldn't come out. So something must be up with the harness.

Can't wait for my next dealer visit. I'm sure somehow this isn't covered under warranty either.

I have to say, my Lexus dealer (traded in an RX330 for the S4) was so much more consumer friendly it's not even a comparison. They bent over backwards when things like this went wrong. E.g., some weather stripping came off my 6 year old RX and they helped get it back on (the clips were clipped so they had to do something else to get it on), no questions asked, no charge, as part of a regular oil service.

CJ_S4

Were you able to get to the fog lights from the front by popping this cover off on both sides? How difficult is it? Thanks.

RCM09

The grilles came out with little effort. I replaced the fogs with the Hoen Zeonmatch and it's very easy to do.