Warranty Direct

[TechNick]

Guess I was lucky. Had car for about 3 months with a transferred WD policy. Just after paying for renewal (£715/year/top cover) temperature kept creeping up. Took it to local Audi dealer who liased direct with WD on my behalf. Needed thermostat replacing and you know what that involves! WD paid for it and Audi threw in a new water pump etc foc so well pleased. I know these cars can be expensive. Guy I bought it off treated it like his baby. I have the last bill from Audi Exeter for cambelt change, full service and respray of front bumper (stone chips) Total = £2134 !

Different world, huh? Outside of exotica, there can't be a huge number of cars that can truely prepare you for the costs involved in running these beasts (and unfortunatley don't think it's that uncommon to see bills in excessive of that one, especially if using main dealers! ).

In fact, £2,134 actually sound a bit cheap for all that work.

Can only really go from my own experiences of main dealer prices, so could be way off the mark, but I'd reckon on between £500 and £750 for the service (depending on whether sparks are needed or not), maybe £400ish for the respray, leaving £984-£1,234 for the cambelt on that bill. For that amount, doubt you'd get much more than the basic cambelt replacement (i.e. no water pump, thermostat, tensioners/rollers) - probably be looking at an extra £350 for those if done at the same time.
Again, could be way off in my maths/assumptions, but your experience to boot seems to imply that those ancilleries weren't done at the same time as the cambelt. Was that the case here? Always seems a false economy to me for any car.

Speaking of false economies (and at an attempt to bring this back on topic again ), my main driver for renewing my warranty with whomever when it comes up shortly is the fact that I'm now in/approaching primetime alternator failure mileage... Been absolutely fine to date, but does seem to be a very common trend...
I'd be interested to learn from anyone that has had an alternator failure refused by a 3rd party warranty company (if only to avoid them!).

[sennamen]

Fair comments. I took Audi Exeter to task over the thermostat etc asking why they did'nt replace it as a matter of course when they did the cambelt. It was basically no comment and they would'nt discuss it further as I was not the current owner at the time. Anyway, the respray of the front bumper came in at £198 on the bill so quite a fair price and the rest, on reflection was not to bad. Oh yes, there was a final comment from the lady on service reception. ' The reason the car was overheating was because the car had been tuned/chipped!' Prior to the Audi I ran a W215 CL600 with a remap and custom exhaust. Comparisons? RS6 performance in a different league. Merc ride far better being more of a refined cruiser but a bit like punting a barge. First drive in the Audi was like a go kart next to the Merc. Fit and finish on the Audi is far superior also. I'm more than very happy with the car and can still go to B&Q and get 2 lenghts of 4" x 2" and so on without drawing too much attention to myself which is great. You are also very aware of some knowing looks on a regular basis.