van-s4-02

> van-s4-02 needs to go to a different dealer

I hear ya, I went to check out some bimmers today.

This is my third Audi - two A4s and current S4, all bought new, all bought in Canada. But in a retrospect I've gotta say this - while I really like the brand and its whole understated luxury thing that it has going for it, when it comes to the ownership, it really feels like owning a Ford.

Even leaving aside the fact that I had to take the car for 2-3 day repairs 4 times in its first two years (and pay for two of these myself), the overall impression I'm getting from (allegedly) best service department in Greater Vancouver is that of clueless drones with no understanding of the context. They can manage an oil change and reset a diagnostic alert, but when it comes to something more intricate they appear to be helpless. At this day and age one would expect a centralized knowledge base of all maintenance issues that is populated and accessed by authorized service departments. If I come in and say that I'm getting a grinding sound when I'm backing up with my steering wheel all the way to one side, I expect them to know what the heck it is in minutes. Not to require a test drive and then claim - "we can't hear, we can't fix it".

When a xenon bulb dies in one year old luxury car, I expect them not only to replace it for free (how the heck could it be anything else but a factory defect ?), but at the very least know right away that accessing this bulb takes a couple of hours of disassembly work.

Instead I am being fed "20 more minutes" bull**** for 4 freaking hours. Then I ask for a courtesy car (I have a year old child in tow), they say they don't have any. I insist, they offer me a rental corolla. I point out that as a proud owner of an 80k car I expect something better, they go "talk to a manager" and an A6 loaner magically materializes. WTF. And this we-don't-have-loaners bull**** repeats itself with exact precision every single time I visit them.

The story from the last time - I'm telling them that I don't drive in a way that would cause rotors to wear off in 20K. Ask them to look at what could be causing this as the problem may re-manifest itself after they change the damn rotors. What do I hear in response ? Silence. Just like talking to a wall or asking a stranger for a kidney. They just don't give a flying f*ck if it's not an oil change.

So, thanks a lot, Audi. I am fed up. Call me when you stop selling luxury cars and start selling luxury car ownership experience. Cheerio.

/rant

wankeldude

I just got my RS4 back from 2 days of being at the shop for a driver's side seat heater that wasn't working. Get the car back this morning "all fixed" and guess what?

Not only does the driver's side seat heater still not work, but now the passenger's side doesn't work either! ha!

This is nothing compared to the 7 months my car was in the shop due to a car accident (0% my fault by the way). Parts were being ordered and would take months to come from germany. Parts were coming in *broken* and had to be re-ordered...wait a few more months... more parts to be ordered that weren't ordered the first time... WHAT A NIGHTMARE! get the car back after 7 months and drive away to EPC light, CEL blinking...turn around take it right back 15 minutes after I get it... Wait another 2 weeks for them to figure out why...

Sounds like a joke right? nope. $2,000 per month lease so I can drive a TOYOTA TERCEL for 7 and a half months while my RS4 is being fixed. That's a joke!

PDXA4

Audi really needs to quickly sort out it's dealership network in North America.
The quality of service and customer satisfaction varies greatly from city to city.
They need to roll out a Lexus-like quality service and warranty coverage to all dealerships.

I'm not sure how they can expect to be a premium luxury brand with the growth that they project in this market without sorting out the most basic issues first...

Kenny

Your experience is more reflective of that particular dealership, not the marque as a whole... My Audi service experience has been on par with the better BMWs dealers in my area...(which has been quite competent, and they always provided me with a loaner car when I requested it)

ub2slw

like "have you stopped beating your wife?"