2 year service on 2017 A4 B9
 

Grip session on.

I'm going on year 2 with my 2017 A4. The car has baby miles (11.5K after 24 months). For me, the math on audi care just doesn't work, since there is no way I will hit 40k and DSG service at year 4. I know, lots of opinions here. But thats where my head is at.

My dealer is a multi-site audi group with multiple locations. They recently closed my nearest dealership, but retained the service center (in a slightly relocated and less convenient spot). But as its still much closer to me than the next alternative, I use the service center.

So looking at the '20k service', I resolved that I just need an oil change. The Pollen/cabin filter replacement seems too early for me, and actually I've been meaning to check how much of a PITA it is to replace, so I may just do myself.

So I schedule a state inspection, oil change, and finally getting to recall (speaker trim). I did notice that the adhesive starting giving way, and I felt the sharp knife point of the speaker badge trim. They also added service item 28H3 to my order list.
I have to them correct from "20k service" to oil change only quite a few times. I see "oil change" on my service reminder. They had previously sent me a promo for free state inspection.

I arrive early, slightly ahead of opening time and my first opening appt. I'm happy to wait in lobby for a bit, as the traffic gets exponentially worse in this location as am wears on. They snap to it and take car in, and then the service advisor disappears for 10 minutes. Comes back with some 'numbers for me', and I get the semi-hard sell on audicare. I see lot of scribble and a $2,000 something total (which is probably their accumulated cost of the 4 services.), alongside audicare, which I think they had as $896.

Starts off with "Since we're doing the 20k service, I'd like to present you with the audicare option.." etc. etc. value proposition.
the 20k service looked like $400 something, with oil change and pollen filter being the only real items that I note.

Me; "We're not doing 20k, its only got 11.5k miles, and its early, so just an oil change please..."
As all the numbers were based on the 20k pricing as a predicate, this rather interrupted the argument.

them: "well, ok. we can certainly do that..." at $189.95 for the oil service, its premium city anyway.

I eventually leave with my loaner.. I'm not against the suggestion or recommendation on audicare, which I would be free to politely decline. but I'm leaving for work, so I didn't really appreciate waiting for the number sheet to be worked up. the extra time is felt hard with the traffic on the way in.

got a call back about an hour later with them recommending a tire rotation (ok, thats fair) AND a front end alignment.
Me: " cars not pulling at all, you see something"
"its just for the overall health of tires and protecting investment".
I agree to the tire rotation, but not the alignment.

You know, I get it etc with the car and its extra performance and the need for good maintenance. I think for us low mileage customers, it just comes off as a full shakedown.

Thanks for the breakdown. I have the same situation in a few weeks with my 2 year due with 13k miles. Just received a $100 off Audicare coupon via e-mail, so i have been debating and doing some of the math. I have a great European place down the road, but really like having the loaner for the day and the piece of mind that they Audi can't try and stiff me on warranty issues.

Hate the hardsell too. Inflated numbers and dubious add-ons... You handled it well.

The 20K service is actually not being done early in your case. If you look more closely you will see it is either 20K miles or 24 months in service. As your miles are lower than average, the service interval is based on time.

No, I realise that is the case for some items in the list.

But the 20k service itself is an oil change, a new pollen filter, and possibly only missed item claimed related to time (every 24 months) , is replacing brake fluid. After that its a check list, much of which still apears in the bargain oil change at 189.95.

It sounds like you're thinking about this correctly, and I agree it feels like a shakedown. Might be time to take your service business elsewhere. They probably closed the dealership for financial reasons and it sounds like they might be struggling to pay rent on the service location because too many customers left it when they did, so they're trying very hard to up-sell unneeded services.

Good call on the rotation and on declining an alignment. Do you have a FWD A4? I'm curious because I've been reading lots of stories recently about dealers telling people that quattro cars don't need rotations, which is of course bull**** considering how 100% of steering forces and 80% of braking forces are delivered via the front tires no matter what your drivetrain is. And the left tires will always wear ever so slightly more quickly than the rights, because we statistically make more right turns and the left tires are on the outside doing the work when you're turning that direction. That last part said, I run directional winters on a dedicated set of wheels on my B9 S4 and after 1 very lengthy 7,000 mile winter drive season (I'm a skier and drive to the mountains A LOT) the left/wear difference was small enough that I feel comfortable only rotating front to back. About 8/32nd on the left vs 9/32nd tread remaining over that time period once I finally pulled them off and put summers back on 2 months ago. I believe new was 12/32nd or something.

Thanks for reminding me. That is why I took it.

That's only in the U.S., I believe.

So, in 15 days, my car is due for its two year service too... and I have about 13000km. (That's about 8100 miles for our friends south of the border)

I'm curious to see what my regular service advisor says; last year, he said that he thought some of the things in the two-year service might not need doing.

Interestingly, I thought you could only buy AudiCare in the first year?

(BTW, here, no loaners for that kind of work... only for warranty repairs, I think)