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Hi All. Got the car back last week. The car now performs how I expected it should have. In Sport mode there is a bit of abruptness, maybe even more than my previous AMG cars (not apples to apples, I know), but miles better than the lurching I'd experienced when shifting out of P, or when slowing to a stop.
I did buy the car sight unseen, and not CPO..Interesting angle about that it possibly couldn't be CPO'd..I suppose also due to it's 63k miles, perhaps they didn't feel it the right car to CPO.. who knows..
My averages over 23+ years in pre-owned vehicle ownership said: don't spend $7k on a aftermarket service contract. . and for all of the other 20+ vehicles I'd owned: under, or just out of warranty, I WON!
.. this one.. less so.. but it more than averages out in my favor over the long haul.
I hope it was not only a "mechatronic" issue.. I, keyword here: Trusted, my local Crown Audi dealership's assessment, and that of the Audi factory tech that they had come assess the car, when Crown could not determine the cause of the issues (stalling, etc).. Did they BS me?... I suppose I'll never know at this point.. but given my win to loss ratio with lifetime car issues.. I'm OK with the whole thing... It is what it is
What I'm dissatisfied with is the selling dealer's handling of the situation, Strong Audi in SLC UT sold the car to me in this condition, their rep didn't even have the decency to follow through with his self made commitment to "look into this", and get back to me.. 95% of dealers are "shady", that said: based on my experience with them, I'm definitely adding Strong Audi in Salt Lake City UT to that list. I'll go leave them some internet reviews when I have a few spare moments.
Thanks for any input shared.
PS: I did find a place that seemed capable of rebuilding these trannys, in the Tampa Bay, FL area.. so get at me should anyone need their info. Cost: Under $4k with additional warranty coverage for the tranny. Turnaround was stated as 3 days.
Hopefully, the car will hold up for you now. Just a comment on CPO. CPO is not a thousands of dollars aftermarket service contract. I'm also not into that. I buy new but keep past the factory warranty and never bought extended warranties etc. They don't pay off, IMO. CPO on the other hand is an Audi program. It does cost the dealership some money to do it and CPO'd cars therefore sell for a little more, but it gives you a 100k miles factory warranty. No aftermarket BS. Fully operated and supported by Audi. I believe the cost for the dealer to certify a car is around $1000, so they may wanna pass that on the customer, but I think it's well worth it if they do. If they can't pass it on, then it eats into the dealerships profits, so sometimes they don't certify the cars to make more profit. I have a strong feeling that that's probably the reason why Strong didn't certify it. With a CPO car you know that it met certain criteria and it went through an inspection, so it's a good piece of mind. Something to keep in mind if you buy Audi again in the future. Other manufacturers have similar programs.
Last edited by superswiss; 08-21-2018 at 07:05 AM.
Hopefully, the car will hold up for you now. Just a comment on CPO. CPO is not a thousands of dollars aftermarket service contract. I'm also not into that. I buy new but keep past the factory warranty and never bought extended warranties etc. They don't pay off, IMO. CPO on the other hand is an Audi program. It does cost the dealership some money to do it and CPO'd cars therefore sell for a little more, but it gives you a 100k miles factory warranty. No aftermarket BS. Fully operated and supported by Audi. I believe the cost for the dealer to certify a car is around $1000, so they may wanna pass that on the customer, but I think it's well worth it if they do. If they can't pass it on, then it eats into the dealerships profits, so sometimes they don't certify the cars to make more profit. I have a strong feeling that that's probably the reason why Strong didn't certify it. With a CPO car you know that it met certain criteria and it went through an inspection, so it's a good piece of mind. Something to keep in mind if you buy Audi again in the future. Other manufacturers have similar programs.
Superswiss, thank you, and yes, I was familiar with the CPO offering, I only meant that Strong Audi didn't do it for this car, nor offer it as an option. I absolutely agree it's typically a value..IF the dealership minimally (like the $1k you referenced, although I've never seen that slim a mark up) marks up the car to account for it (often times you'll see dealerships ask $4K++ for a CPO'd car, vs the equivalent without it- I see this across the board: Audi, MB, BMW)
I'd had aftermarket extended service contracts quoted, and they ranged from upper $4k for very short term coverage, and into the $7k+ for a 3 or 4 yr offering.
I'll definitely have this car for a while now, after what I've invested into it.. too bad the money didn't go into mods!
I think there's a fairly easy lesson learned here: don't buy a car across country sight unseen. You can get a plane ticket anywhere in the country for under 200 bucks if it's a couple weeks out. Also, expecting a third party to honor anything not on paper after the sale of a vehicle is preposterous. Always always always drive a car before you buy it, warrantied or not. The absolute worst case scenario is the car is trash and you have to get a plane ticket back home.
08-21-2018, 05:59 AM
