audi is upsetting a lot of people with its lack of info on the product and delivery times and allocations of the R8. i understand they cannot inform of us of everything, but when your dealer tells you constantly that they have one or two allocations and that one of them will be here in "the fall", that they have no idea about upcoming option availability, that AOA doesn't "tell us anything"... then well, it gets really frustrating.

their sad excuse for a dedicated customer support line was decent at first, but now is practically non-existent. they provide no support, just jumbled up information and they never call you back as promised.

my last call to the USA R8 support line was last week. the girl talked to me like she was reading from a B-movie script, every question i asked was answered with a "please contact your dealer", and get this.......... with a thumbing through of what it seems was an R8 catalog, like the one i have, since she read off of it while pretending to speak from memory. i could hear the pages being turned. very sad.

after i insisted on her inquiring about the alcantara headliner she told me it came in brilliant red or phantom black. i don't think she had a CLUE. after i described what the alcantara headliner was she put me on hold for about 2 minutes and came back and told me that it would cost 2K in the USA. i inquired about the full LED headlights and she told me it had full LED lights. but only in the rear.

W T F

i think AOA just sold itself out to the numbers game. it could care less about the grass roots of its buyership- yes- the ones who feed its belly by buying FWD A4s- and is focusing more on the fact that the R8 is popular and that they'll all be sold so they'll make their money.

you know what audi? the people you **** off now won't be there to bail you out if you go downhill again. and those are the people that put you on top of the hill.
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as an aside, the main reason audi is getting it wrong imo, is that they rewarded dealers and not the customers with the way decided to allocate the R8. though i am sure there is a business model reason for doing it the way they did i could care less. i speak for myself, the customer. i am not interested in audi and its dealers. i want my car. and though i know every other joe wants his car and not everyone can get one then audi should look at the one variable that matters when triaging the vip amongst the interested.

how do you define this "vip"? well, the vip should be the guy who has shown brand loyalty. and the more brand loyalty the better. how does the guy who bought an S8, an RS6, a Q7, and an RS4 in 4 years feel when the dealer he hung his hat on 2 years ago with a deposit anticipating the R8 gets 0 allocations for the car until late next year, and another guy who has never bought an audi gets lucky enough to get an R8 this year because he put his deposit down at a dealer that gets 3 this year.

i am sure the capitalists among you will tell me to go cry you a river. but how you reward your customers is an integral part of capitalism. it's about principles. audi is dropping the ball on this one.

 

what happened? I thought you had one on order.

 

haven't ordered. can't order till there's an allocation given to my dealer.

 

Knowing what I know about the R8 program, my guess is that your dealer has failed to pony up the $25K to be a certified service dealer or the $50K to be a certified sales dealer. Without your dealer making a financial commitment to Audi, he will not receive an allocation and will not be allowed to sell the R8 and you will never get an R8 through your dealer.

 

i do know that it is a service only dealer for now. but, as i said, that shouldn't be my problem. what are people supposed to do? have six deposits at six different dealers placed two years ago in order to avoid waiting 2 years for the car?

by the time my dealer found out it would get that designation (through a technicality btw, not b/c of lack of funds) there were 18 people on the list of every other dealer in the country. why would i want to be number 19?

it should have full designation within a few months.

 

Ferrari does it, and they can easily sell all they make. maybe you need to talk to someone higher up at AoA.

 

There was NEVER any ambiguity on the part of AUDI (AoA) with regard to what the dealer participation would be and how the dealer was required to participate once the R8 program was released to the dealers, so with all due respect to you I call BS on what your dealer is telling you. All dealers that have an R8 allocation in the first 300 units for 2007 have an order number assigned and they can go to the AoA order system and tell you when the car will be built and when the car will arrive at the dealership. My car will arrive the first week of Oct.

I understand that you and the guy on Fourtitude are pissed that you won't get an R8 in the early go-round, however IMHO it would appear that you simply told someone that you wanted an R8 and did not put up the deposit.

I have gotten correct information when needed from not only my dealer rep and dealer principal, but from the R8 support line. Hell, I call my dealer rep with a question and I have the answer in fifteen minutes or less EVERY SINGLE CALL I am not sure what you expect since the support center folks are not product personnel but rather an information center. I sure don't understand your not getting return calls, I have every single time, but then I have an order number which may make a difference. There is not much of a case to be made against AoA since their support line is a tool not available from Porsche, BMW or any other high line company I am aware of.

IMHO your dealer is the one who has let you down in a very big way and you should vent your frustrations toward your dealer and not AoA.

 

The dealer I have dealt with for 20 years has been totally on the ball. In fact they have gone all the way to the top of AOA to get something special done for our R8. By the way this is Jim Ellis Audi in Atlanta.

Call me if you like on Monday and I will see what I can do.

Stephen/APR

 

in fact i put a deposit down over 24 months ago. at two dealers. then one on a third just in case, a month before paris debut. so i've done what was expected. where do you come up with the conclusion that all i did was tell someone i wanted an R8 without putting down a deposit?

if you have a build car then you naturally get all your questions answered. but lets face it. getting questions answered is more important when you are unsure about getting a car, not when you know your car is actually being built. at that point its just about the jitters. so lucky you.

you are right. my dealer may have been shafting me for all i know, despite the fact my family has bought 6 cars from them and never let us down. first time for everything. but i played by the rules, the audi inside line asked me to pull my deposits and leave only one. i placed my trust in their system so i went with the dealer i trusted. and now my playing by the rules is not being recognized by audi. like i keep saying, it shouldn't be up to me to be keeping tabs on which dealer will carry the car and how many they'll get. it should be about audi taking care of its loyal customers. if audi can tell me that each of the customers who will get their cars before me bought more audis or spent more money on them than i did on my previous purchases then i'll keep my mouth shut. but i don't think that is the case.

 

i sent a letter to the R8 product manager for AOA. forget his name right now. that was a month ago.

they probably read it and threw it away.

i'm very disappointed.