Ahhhh DRC failure - advice needed please

[Duffs]

So as not to bore all your readers with a sad tail of woe that has been written hundreds of times before on this very subject, i will simply summarise;

Suspension rock hard and crashes noisily over every bump and lump in the road. When giving it the berries on corners the back of the car skips over any undulations, knocking from drivers side rear.

All these events only seemed to manifest themselves over the last few days.

As i was driving back from Stanstead airport i decided to pop in and visit AMD, although Shaun and the boys were snowed under they still found time to make me a cuppa whilst sticking the car on the ramps. Lo and behold two shocks had bad oil leakages.

Now the shocks were replaced almost exactly 12 months ago/ 4000 miles ago by Audi under Audi extended warranty. Are the replacement parts still covered under the 24 months replacement parts warranty bearing in mind that the Audi warranty has now expired and i am now covered by a third party warranty?

I have the top cover of insurance with a company called Motorcare, has anyone else had dealings with this company?

Obviously i am going to try to go down the avenue of aftermarket suspension rather than new DRC parts so i need to come up with a viable argument, AMD are able to fit KW Varient 3s for £1400 plus VAT (sorry Grizz i would love to give you the work but i am flying abroad on Monday for 3 months and obviously you are a bit far for the Missus to drop the car off!! Unless you know of a cunning plan) What price do Audi quote for their repairs?


Of course the frequency of failures is a big point but i expect unless the warranty assessor has heard of DRC he will be none the wiser.


So if anyone has any advice about any topics covered above, please let me know before i contact the warranty company tomorrow.


Cheers All Duffs

[andyt]

My DRC went maybe 6 months ago and the valves (I think) were both replaced under an extended Audi Warranty. The car's been getting worse over the last few weeks so it's gone in again and the valves have apparently gone again. It's being done this Thu/Fri. Since it was the second time, I was hoping to have some joy in talking Audi Warranty into letting me take it to Grizz instead. However, the dealer informed me that because it was the same part that they previously replaced it wouldn't be going as far as my warranty, but would be replaced as part of the warranty on the original job. They haven't specifically specified what would have happened had by Audi Warranty expired, but I suspect it wouldn't have made a difference.

[tombs]

Audi will not replace your suspension with aftermarket parts. Your warranty company on the other hand might, but I would play "dumb" about the drc being repaired only 12 month's ago if you plan to go through them. The Audi parts of course that were replaced are covered by 24 month's warranty including fitting and if the whole system was replaced back then you may want to take this route...but only if you like you like to reguarly visit your local Audi.

[MartynC]

Mine failed just before Christmas. Audi wouldn't entertain a non Audi fix so did the warranty job. It's going again now so have booked the car in at Unit 20 as simply fed up with repeated DRC failure.

MartynC

[Cornishmoocher]

Good choice Martyn- you wont regret it.......

[MartynC]

Thanks Cornish, I'm looking forward to it! I assume you've had yours done......did you have the anti-roll bars as well??

MartynC

[Rupert]

I too am looking forward to binning the DRC after Cornish was kind enough to show me how good the H&Rs were (with ARBs). It was truly frightening.

His car sticks to the road like glue. Going into one roundabout, I was thinking this is fast, he must be going straight over.... NOPE Mr Moocher was going all the way around! On rails!
My DRC car would have understeered into the first kerb. His car can go around corners at least twice as fast as mine. Completely flat with no understeer, and unreal levels of grip on a damp road

It's the way the RS6 should have been from the factory!

Very, very impressive.

[Cornishmoocher]

I too am looking forward to binning the DRC after Cornish was kind enough to show me how good the H&Rs were (with ARBs). It was truly frightening.

His car sticks to the road like glue. Going into one roundabout, I was thinking this is fast, he must be going straight over.... NOPE Mr Moocher was going all the way around! On rails!
My DRC car would have understeered into the first kerb. His car can go around corners at least twice as fast as mine. Completely flat with no understeer, and unreal levels of grip on a damp road

It's the way the RS6 should have been from the factory!

Very, very impressive.

[Duffs]

Well Audi have said that they will fund a full repair, apparently if it fails after the initial 3 year period regardless of if it was replaced a day before expiry then Audi won't pay, but if it fails during extended warranty then all components replaced are covered by the 24 month cover - it's to do with the fact that the owner has made a personal contribution. Sounds very odd to me but that is what i was told by Bexley Audi this morning. Incidently very poor customer care was displayed bearing in mind that there was an average cost of £60k in the showroom (1 x R8, 1 x RS6, 1 x S8v10, a few TTs and an A2 convertible) Audi really need to sort their staff out!
I have spoken to my warranty provider and they are waiting for a report and costings from AMD, so fingers crossed!!!!!!

Duffs

[MartynC]

Thanks for that Rupert....I must say I can't wait now. Like a kid at Christmas! Better have ARBs as well then.

MartynC

[ollys]

Good luck wtih Motorcare - you'll need it. I had the utter misfortune of having to deal with them last summer, they were unbelievably rude (the woman actually called me Mr Cross in an email! - no effing wonder I was cross) took ages to pay and generally did everything they could to be obstructive. I finally pinned them down but it was a bloody effort. Go with Audi.

[MalcolmSu]

His car sticks to the road like glue. Going into one roundabout, I was thinking this is fast, he must be going straight over.... NOPE Mr Moocher was going all the way around! On rails!

If ever there was a set of words to convince me to move away from DRC those are they!

[foz01]

Pm'd about this guide, anyone else gt it as mines fooked

[MartynC]

Well the jobs been done this morning.....H&R plus Hotchkis ARBs.

The car is SO different, planted, compliant, Bl##dy good and I am very pleased with it.

Unit 20 is also a pleasure to visit. Grizz is very knowlegable and he and Lee are nice guys.......Highly recomended, will be back for more tweaks I'm sure.

MartynC

[Hartge]

You can add me to the list to the DRC victims, mine finally went yesterday for the first time after 35k (at least it lasted longer than the gearbox).
Noticed the small oil leak from the rear O/S a couple of days ago then yesterday the handling transformed in to a wobbly blancmange along with the tell-tale noises

If this is going to be the start of an never ending repair cycle then I think I'll be shopping for a set of H&R's and a Hostchkis ARB in the next few days as no longer tied to the Audi warranty.
Here goes my first claim with Warranty Direct, hopefully they will see the value in replacing all of it for coil-overs instead of constantly repairing the DRC.

Gary B.