The G Man

Even after the deep discounts, the dealer is still make a profit, that kind of tells you how over priced these add on are. I once had a finance manager offer me paint protection for $600, down from $1000 after I refused it. I refused the $600 deal and ask my body shop how much it would cost to put on the same product, the body shop wanted only $250.

chicago_marketing

sinfonia

I just purchased a 2018 Q7 with 28K miles from a non-Audi dealership, so I am trying to understand what warranties I am eligible to purchase. My original manufacturer's warranty has 11 months left on it but I want to buy whatever warranties I need now.

I am interested in the 10 year/120K mile extended warranty and the lowest quote I have found for this is $6600 thus far. Is this a reasonable amount to pay? (Most started in the high 7K or low 8K first.)

Can I still purchase term protection if I am the second owner? Do I also negotiate the price of this contract?

What other warranties are there to purchase?

Last, I hear about third-party warranties, but one mechanic told me that many times, they say they will cover something but in the end, do not cover many times. I figured if I went with the Audi one, it might be better?

Thanks so much. I'm new to all of this.

mhoran89

I doubt your car would even warrant $7000 worth of unplanned and planned repairs from now until 120K miles. You will need to do some fluid flushes, spark plugs, filters, alignments, tires, and brakes. I honestly don't know what the dealers are telling people or where people are reading these cars suck in regards to reliability, but I would be damned if you get anywhere close to getting your money's worth out of a $6600 10yr/120K extended warranty.

If you had to do one trans/diff fluid flush, one coolant pump, 2 brake jobs, 3 sets of tires, a couple alignments, spark plugs, filters, fluids, etc. I doubt you would even break $12K by doing some smart shopping or using an independent mechanic over 120K miles. And your extended warranty you are talking about isn't going to cover 1/4 of that stuff. I would say if your car has 30K and is 3 years old I would not pay more than $4000 to get a warranty that got you to 100K regardless of the year term it comes with. The engine and transmission in your vehicle has been around for a long time and has proven itself as incredibly good over many many years in all sorts of different VAG vehicles.

Hope this helps, let us know what you end up doing. I would like someone else to chime in on this too....

JD15

As you note, an extended warranty is going to cover very few of the maintenance items listed above. I had my B8 A4 for 8.5 years and spent around $400 on repairs. I haven't read anything to concern me about the B9 S5's reliability and don't plan to purchase an extended warranty for it either. I once bought an expensive extended warranty for an electronics item and vowed to never purchase an extended warranty again. The item did eventually fail, but was close to one year beyond the expiration of the warranty.

A4Audi4Fun

FWIW - companies make money off extended warranties on used vehicles else they wouldn't be offering them; they typically have enough data over multiple brands and vehicles types to accurately determine what percentage will make a claim against them. Some folk's repairs will have made the extension beneficial, others it's purely Peace of Mind for a given period of time. YMWV.

mhoran89

The things I have had go bad in my 5 separate Audi vehicles which I would say were not "routine" and could cost money out of pocket past the warranty, or that were not regular wear and tear comprises of two things:

A radiator grille shutter motor replacement on my Q7 to the tune of $1200 or so (would have been covered under Federal Emissions Warranty if I had not tuned the ECU).
Two separate visits to Audi dealers to troubleshoot my Q7 A/C system. Once to fill with dye and a second time they replaced some seals.

I have had a tie rod end or something stick and had to get torched red hot to get it to adjust for maybe $50 on a daily driven A8L in the winter.
My Q7 had the fuel rail (seals maybe) replaced under a recall. No skin off my back and no further issues.
My Q7 had a camera/wiring issue in one of the side view mirrors, but that was taken care of under warranty. Was giving me tons of side assist and driver assist errors.
My Q7 had a leaky coolant pump (housing) and that was done under warranty.
My Q7 was demonstrating the "quattro rumble" and the dealer found the center diff fluid burnt and replaced under warranty.
My Q7 had cold low speed brake squeal (lack of second pad clips) and I brought rotors to them and they did a brake job at a much reduced cost from standard (while under warranty period).
I have had some coil packs go bad in my 2.0T A5 but it was tuned and I bought cheap ones and subsequently learned my lesson and replaced with OEM/Bosch.
I put in spark plugs that were not gapped correctly in the same tuned 2.0T A5 that caused it to run rough, that was an easy fix.
I had a low RPM vibration coming from 4.0T downpipe flex sections that were replaced under a goodwill TSB through the dealership network I purchased my A8L from. They did it under "warranty".
I was about due for spark plugs in my tuned 4.0T A8L and had some misfires, plug replacement solved that.
I have had creaking in my Q7 sunroof, repeated dealer visits to clean and lubricate all the associated parts have solved that.
My B9 S5 MMI was acting up and would not return to the radio preset screen after the car was idle for some time. MMI software update solved that under warranty.
I had a passenger side vanity mirror fail in a weird way on my B9 S5 because the light would activate randomly when moving the sun visor around even when you didn't want the light to go on (replaced under warranty).
B9 S5 threw airbag codes and they applied zip ties to a cable harness under the passenger seat and that fixed that issue.

I would say I have put probably 200K miles or more on Audi cars in 5 years or so and they have been very reliable for me. I have tuned 4 out of the 5 I have owned with ECU software. I really hope this helps everyone get an idea of some if not most of the things I have seen go "wrong" with these cars and they really are not all that big of an issue and most of them are regular maintenance anyway... which is definitely not covered under any extended warranty. Also many of these things can be worked on at an indy mechanic for much less than stealership prices...

TONY_82

Yes, there is a very good chance a third party warranty might not cover something that they originally claimed they would. I have dealt with many of them through the business in the past, and they find plenty of bogus reasons why not to pay. So, I would steer clear of those. Just my experience.

18A5SB

While the car is still under warranty I'd take full advantage of it, buy a OBD scanner keep track of error messages from time to time, if some errors keep coming back get the dealer to take care of it. Generally, As long as one does the routine maintains per the owners manual, and don't neglect any minor issues most cars today don't need expensive repairs.

Now for your peace of mind you may consider a 2-3 year (short term) extended warranty for a few hundred dollars (if available).

I am not buying extended warranty on my A5 after the warranty runs out in October.

mhoran89

Mine expires next July I think. I won't be getting any added warranty either. Drivetrain warranty is already out the window... LOL!