Audi Awe

After four attempts, I finally receive a live person.

By the way, service department opens at 7:30 am, however, they conveniently do not have a direct line, so your call defaults to the sales desk, which is not staffed until 9 am. With no opt out to the service department. Wish my phone worked that way.

Me: I need to bring my 2003 A6 2.7T in for the o2 recall.
Audi (with an attitude): Let me transfer you to our scheduling desk....

Me: wait wait wait wait
Audi (with an attitude): Yea our scheduling desk is busy, so I guess I'll book you.
What type of car is it?

Me: Ummm 2003 A6 2.7T
Audi (with an attitude): What do you need?
Me: Ummm yea, like I said, o2 sensor recall

Audi (with an attitude): Have you been here before?
Me: Yes. He looks me up.

Audi (with an attitude): Oh... You may want to re-think bringing "that" car in...
Me: Ok, I'm game, why?

Audi (with an attitude): We don't have a recall notice and we need it because it tells us the necessary steps for correcting the problem.
Me: Is it common for the consumer to receive information from AoA before a dealer?
Would you like me to fax you a copy of the recall?

Audi (with an attitude): Hold on
Me: wait wait wait wait and really wait

Audi (with an attitude): Oh, I found it. Mail must be slow because of the holiday season.
Me: AoA mails you?.... they don't have any means by which they electronically communicate this critical information to you???!!! By now my blood is starting to boil.

Audi (with an attitude): Ummmmm no.
Me: Ok, now that you know what your talking about?? Do you replace all four sensors or what?

Audi (with an attitude): No we examine the car and determine which sensor if any needs to be replaced.
Me: You mean you check the ECU for fault codes and replace the faulty sensor. Which I happen to know is B1S1, but God forbid, I explain to him HOW I know.

Audi (with an attitude): Why yes.??
Me: Ok what is the first available date you can book me.

Audi (with an attitude): One month from today.
Me: Wow!! How long will you need the car?

Audi (with an attitude): I don't know.

Me: I guess I won't even bother to explain to you my headlights are not working properly.

And the call goes on and on and he acts just as negligent about everything like I'm talking about a car he's never heard of.....

These people are a total disgrace to the business!! Another dealer I have called operates in a similar fashion!! I feel like exploding and driving the car through their window. Maybe that will get their attention. It seems like this is some kind of sick tactic they use to get the client to retreat and go away. I hate to say this, but my friend that drives an M5, books his appointments on-line, and gets a confirmation call or e-mail within the hour. They also recognize and support his mods. Audi could be poised to capture tons of market-share at this point in the game, but their inept ability to standardize and train their dealerships, will be their ultimate failure!!!

Thanks for allowing me to vent. It's been 6 hours and I'm still hot. The reason being, I love the car, and wish I had support to back my needs. It's unbelievable to me that a manufacturer could produce such a nicely designed car, both inside and out and drop the ball on sales and service.

PS- As a group, we should lobby, e-mail, whatever, AoA to do something about this appalling pathetic excuse for dealerships that seem to be the norm, not the exception. I am also calling the owner of the dealership because he owns numerous dealerships in our area and I want to hear his thoughts on this.

Happy New Year!!!

FlyingWombat

is that your frustration is true od 80% of them!

dougaross

I must be lucky-the 2 dealers I've delt with have been fine

Audi Awe

it's 100% since I only have two available dealerships to visit without driving more than 50 miles....

As you can sense, my frustration comes from the fact that I really love the car and wish it wasn't so painful to visit the doctor. I'd do the job myself if they gave me the sensor, but of course, that's not an option. It's not rocket science to deliver good service. Cars have been around a long time and if they do not have the passion to be in the business...get out. It's that simple. Peace..... Thanks for the ear!

2tu®bos1mission

allocations, lower pricing, etc. So normally with enough complaints the dealer will clean up their act.

mpuzach

I tip my hat to you for resisting the temptation to publicly blast the dealer by naming them. Out of curiosity, what part of the country are you in?

FWIW, here in the (San Francisco) Bay Area, I've had pretty good service experiences with 2 Audi dealerships. I guess the point is that, fortunately, they're not all bad.

Good luck!

schnellmb

I must be lucky with my dealer--I never have to wait more than 2 days and they always have an A4 or A6 as a loaner available. If you are in the Cleveland area, try Stoddard Imported Cars. Good Luck!

room 13

threaten the dealerships with independent shops. Let Audi certify an independent shop to do warranty and recall work- maybe add it as an option to the price of the car like a sport package or OnStar with the fee going to cover their certification and "customer satisfaction" data gathering costs. Let the purchaser decide if they want that option and force the dealership to sell you on their service, not just the vehicle price. I'm guessing there would be more than a few independent shops willing to try to get and keep those Audi drivers as customers. Let the dealerships feel the heat of competition. As an example, there is one Audi dealer in the entire state where I live. Do you think they really have to care with no competition whatsoever? I can tell you from personal experience that they don't. (They are also one of the 2 VW dealers and I drive my VW 60 miles to the other dealer for service because I know they will do it right and without a chip on their shoulder.) I know, I'm dreaming with even the idea that this would happen. I really think the dealership service monopoly is a **** poor way to make sure you have satisfied customers. Sorry for taking so much space to state the obvious.

Capt William

I think that the service writers have become numb to complaints. I am also afraid that service writers are quite commonly ignorant about the cars that they deal with. I don't pretend to be an expert on any of the cars I have owned for the past 5 years but I often have to suggest a course of action to the service guys. The problem is that they don't want to listen even though they don't know what they are doing. I'm sure they get "advice" from lots of customers and I'm sure that much of this "advice" is not well founded. On the other hand it is extremely frustrating to have to beg to get your car fixed properly, after the second or third try, when you are pretty sure you know what the problem is but yo can't get the service guy to even consider your suggestion.

I guess I'm venting here too but I have had that frustrating experience at least a half dozen time with my Audi. I ended getting a free new 2.7t because of this sort of indifference on the part of the service guys. Interestingly I did seem to get better service for about a year after the lemon but now it's back to the same old ****. Just like you I really like this car and I don't want to be forced to get something else by the crappy service but when I see how my wife gets treated by the Lexus service department I feel cheated by Audi. By the way my experience with the local BMW dealer was no better than Audi. Both dealerships are owned by the same company.

vpr1980

the damn bitch didn't know her *** from her elbow and was trying to tell me that it would take an hour to recode a remote and that I needed an appointment in like 10 days in the middle of a work day. needless to say that really pissed me off.

got instructions here, took 5 min to recode and thats because I didn't know what I was doing.

I mentioned the recall thing and she had no idea what I was talking about...at that point I needed to get off the phone before I actually told her evrything I was thinking.