robbky48

Huey52

Why? Work is work, without which they wouldn't have jobs.

Service managers love warranty work as typically straightforward TSB's and factory-corporate cost incurred.

Huey52

Point taken. My daughter's 'lowly' 2003 Mazda 6, which was recently sold, never had a seat issue. And btw being leather and being continually maintained (no not by her, me!) still looked great. Something to consider when choosing between more rapidly wearing alcantara, if longevity is your thing.

Back on topic; in fairness it's related to the side airbags. The clips have to be strong enough to hold together the leather-backshell but not too strong to preclude airbag deployment. Obviously Audi has design-erred on the side of deployment. Still, they should be able to find an acceptable solution. This is the only car I've ever owned with such an issue.

However, in a similar grand scheme mindset it's the only issue I have, and only recently, in an otherwise exceptional vehicle.

Gbob

I took my car in to get the seats looked at in February, get the updated firmware for the lights, and to get the stupid 'Service Due' prompt removed.
The balked at removing the prompt, but did it, installed the firmware update, but needed to get the parts for the seat repair.
I still haven't heard back from them and I doubt I will.
I am hoping there will be a mid-version upgrade, I think a trade-in is in order.
B

robbky48

farmerjones

I worked as a service manager for a long time....warranty work pays substantial less than customer pay work, hence the dealership makes less money. Plus, warranty work is not all TSB work.....frequently it involves a lot of diagnostic time that is not always paid for by warranty. Squeaks, rattles, suspension noises, electronic interface glitches....warranty work can be infuriating and pays a fraction of what timing belt chaneg or suspension overhaul would earn a tech that is customer pay. There is a HUGE discrepancy of pay for IDENTICAL tasks when one is warranty and one is customer pay.

I found it hilarious (kinda) that in the european CAR magazine they currently have a pre-owned sports car section where they list the TT as an awesome purchase. On the "things to look out for when buy used" there was the fuel filler neck breaking off requiring a new fuel tank (??????)....and the seat trim issue, LOL. Apparently it affects virtually every car. I saw the warranty bill for one of my 3 attempts to fix it...nearly $900 was charged off to Audi. They have lost there shirts on warranty costs over silly seat trim. Yet somehow the S4, A5, and R8 (with nearly identical seat trim) has zero issues. What a weird deal.

Huey52

Good insight. My SA must be the exception as he cites he likes the no hassle Audi corporate-absorbed cost. But I can see where they would make more on customer work. Kinda like the huge delta between what insurance companies get charged for dental cleanings/procedures vs. the cost for paying cash.

farmerjones

Sure, warranty work is pretty sweet for the service advisor....it's free to the customer. They don't have to "sell" the work, explain the costs and why the bill is so high, or rationalize why a plastic clip costs $20 and a pint of special fluid is $50, LOL. Warranty work is easy as far as the customer experience is concerned, however it's not really a big money maker for the dealership.

Often times warranty pays a fixed amount per procedure. But what happens the bolts being removed are froze or rusted, and it takes an additional hour to get things pulled apart....who pays the tech for his extra hour when warranty pays only a fixed amount? This expenses are often "negotiated" with the tech, and the service department must "right off" the additional labor expense above what warranty will pay. In extreme cases warranty work can "authorize" additional time, but there can be a lot of steps involved (and warranty overseas meticulously track a dealership's use "extra authorization"). It's often a much easer process with customer pay.

Dealerships usually track "revenue per repair order" for each service advisor, giving metrics on who is underperforming and where income is coming from. Sometimes a service advisor is paid or incentivized on these types of metrics. Warranty repairs tend to pull those numbers down, so warranty work can be both good and bad for an advisor. Where I worked if someone had a burnt out lightbulb that was covered under warranty we didn't normally open an official repair order. The service advisor would often replace the bulb himself, and the bull was charged to a general shop fund (with his name attached to show who authorized this "free" bulb giveaway). So service actually paid for what should have been covered by warranty, but the don't want a repair order with such a small revenue to drag down their average "repair order revenue average" or "labor rate per repair order".

Trust me, working in a premium brand service and parts department its a pretty interesting experience, much of which is loss on the average consumer. Where I worked each month we averaged $30,000 of "free giveaway repairs" in the interest of customer satisfaction, and we spent thousands of dollars paying techs for time they spent but weren't covered under the fixed warranty payment schedules. It's quite a complex process that goes on in a well-run dealership, and experienced, customer-focused service advisors with technical insight on mechanical repairs are hard to come by but are worth their weight in gold! When I went to have my seat trim replaced on the third attempt the service advisor told me it was a common problem due to the poor GLUE used to hold things together! OMG....thankfully, they no longer work there. Gee, I wonder why....

Huey52

Point taken. Dropped off a week ago. Didn't even get AudiNA warranty approval until sometime Monday and then parts ordered Tuesday. I dreaded bringing it in, realizing this would be the likely course of action. At least I'm running up some miles on the A3 s-line loaner during road construction season which seems to be everywhere, so I got that goin' for me ....

vnarma

I just got TTS back from the dealer after a ten day backlog for parts. They repaired the drivers seat, and they surprisingly replaced the seat airbags as well. Passenger side appear ok. I hope this is a permanent fix.