turbo510

Last night Brady brought his silver 1.8T over so we could try opening his stuck hood. He needed a oil change the other day, and took it to a speedi-lube type place. What do you know, they yanked the cable end right out of the hood latch, after, according to them, draining the oil. At the release handle, a cable retaining clip was broken off, and the cable was bent and kinked it two places, plus it had been pulled about a foot into the car. The best part is where they said the empty sump was re-filled through the drain plug! We eventually did drain the oil, Brady not trusting anything they said. No one was surprised that well-used oil came out. But this after we had to put a 2-foot breaker bar on the socket, to get the drain plug off. The speedi-lube place had also done a good job of rounding-off the corners, so we weren't sure if it would break loose. Once the hood was open, we saw the steel bracket which holds the plastic cable end was actually bent; this was how hard the "mechanic" pulled on his hood release.

How it can be opened in an emergency (at least on the 1.8T): Jack-up enough to get under the front, but use a jack-stand for protection. We jacked just the driver's side and this was enough. With a bright light, look up at the latch area where you'll spot the small lever which normally has the ball-end of the cable. Insert a metal bar long enough to reach the lever (I used sections of 3/8" socket extensions plugged together), and lever it against a brace supporting the electric fan. This will force the lever towards the driver-side and release the latch.

Gomer

Why in the world would someone take there Aud to a quick change thief and expect anything but problems. Minimum paid grease monkeys that will force anything and overtighten, that is not use a torque spec sheet with torque wrench.
I sell tools and just talked to a Aud tech, he just got back from semi annual training and the new ones will have to be evacuated with a oil vacuum pump. If you try to loosen the drain bolt on the new models they have about 1 turn on it and its off.You cannot refasten them,wait to the oil jocks wreck these. They hold 10 to 15 quarts of oil and there actuall low point in the pan is where the dipstick tube is and that is where the vacuum hose is inserted.
DO NOT EVER USE a quick change place unless you supervise it yourself and even then you are asking for problems with these shops.

turbo510

I can tell you that Brady doesn't usually use the quick-change places, he takes maintenance of his B5 seriously and has an Audi Mechanic, but that guy was unfortunately out of town. A sudden road-trip plan got him to thinking that an oil change was due, and he didn't expect such a simple job could be ****ed-up so easily. Let me tell you, me and my wife have been screwed many times in the past by automotive mechanics and dealers, especially when we had apartments that wouldn't allow car maintenance on-site. I even had an Audi dealer (Santa Ana California) drain all the gear oil out of my old 5000 Turbo and not put any back in, yet they still pasted on the "campaign sticker" showing the thing had synthetic gear oil in the final drive. Later the rear pinion bearing broke up from lack of lubrication. My wife's Honda Civic had its clutch ruined by the Honda dealer squirting oil on it, to get a clutch job. I could go on but you get the picture.