Rs4 seats stolen sw London

[BenWat]

Well it's happened, 2 nights ago some creatures pulled the passenger glass out, removed the front seats and steering wheel. Car was parked outside my house on the street and I had my bedroom windows open. Also have a 4 week old son in the room and up quite a lot and didn't hear a thing. Gutted. It appears to be a bit of an epidemic in sw London having done a few forum searches.

Car is a 2007 avant with 34k miles on clock in mint condition and given replacement seats are £13k I guess it'll be written off.

Keen to hear other people's experiences, I assume fights have been picked with Audi uk and insurance co's but If its not a total brick wall I'd like to push for the car to be repaired. It's crazy they are getting written off for this.

Also anyone selling rs4 seats, I'd be keen for links.

Ben

Ps turns out an r32 was done over last week in parallel street and my brother in laws vw (which was locked) was broken into (no damage caused) and rifled last night in my street.

[BenWat]

The seats are rs4 bucket seats, but are half cloth so may stand out if people keen an eye out.

[PetrolDave]

Stealing the bucket seats seems to have become a common problem over the last few months - you're not the first it's happened to and probably won't be the last.

The problem is that the bucket seats are no longer available from Audi, so I suspect the less honest end of the second hand car market are stealing them and fitting them to cars with the comfort seats to make them easier to sell.

It does mean you almost certainly won't be able to source replacement bucket seats yourself, IIRC the only option that others have found is to buy the car as repairable and fit comfort seats.

[kd]

Just pmd you

So sorry to hear that. With so many of these that I have heard of only this year from the two garages my car went to (over 10 this year from South London) surely Audi can look into this. At this rate a certain percentage of RS4s will all be written off just with these seats stolen. Any advice I can give let me know.

[The_Coat]

Very sorry to hear this.

I will echo my previous comments in a post about this subject and say the scum need their hands cutting off.

[BenWat]

Thanks, anyone got a contact at Audi, so much if this happening got to be worth trying to get a group together and press for some goodwill?

[sar]

this is getting silly now.
gutted for you mate.
you do get the odd set of buckets come on ebay but i would only buy from a breaker where i could see the car they came out of, other wise you could be buying someone else s hot seats.
i know you cant buy our b7 rs4 buckets complete from audi anymore but do they sell a complete bucket for the b8 rs4?, aren't they the same seat just different pattern on the leather?. might be an option.

[BenWat]

Agree it's getting silly. Have written initial email to customer services and will escalate on
Monday. Anyone else that wants to be copied in let me know....

Dear Sirs,

I am the very proud owner of a mint 2007 Audi rs4 avant. Two nights ago, the passenger window was pulled out, the alarm sensors in the over head light disabled and the front bucket seats and steering wheel stolen.

I am a keen car enthusiast and lawyer and have been doing some currently limited research and it seems that most rs4's are written off after this extent of damage. I am in direct contact with two other owners who have been through this same process (bcc'd in) and I am contacting more.

I understand the seats alone are in the region of £13k if you can source them.

I hope you will agree that such a seminal marque of a car being written off in such numbers through seats being stolen is outrageous.

I would appreciate it if you could please put me in touch with someone I could discuss this with.

I do not want my car written off, it has been cherished.

I am going through the insurance and inspection process and a decision on garages to inspect is being made on Monday, my intention is to send the car to Jack Barclay Audi.

I would genuinely appreciate a swift response.

Kind regards

[Ian_C]

IIRC the only option that others have found is to buy the car as repairable and fit comfort seats.

Agreed - and better still, see if you can come to a compromise with the insurance company fitting comfort seats and avoiding writing the car off.

Another option even - claim for the sideglass for your glass excess (around £75 which doesn't affect no claims) but don't claim for the seats - buy and fit comfort Recaro seats and a second hand steering wheel yourself privately. They are embossed with 'RS4' on comfort specced RS4s like PetrolDaves, but I believe they are otherwise identical to B6 B7 S4 Recaros. The priciest part relatively speaking would be the airbag. No loss of no claims, no de-valued car on the register

Usual debate of whether to claim or not to claim. I helped a mate do a spreadsheet years and years ago when his first car was stolen in the night and crashed through several peoples front gardens. With it being such a cheapy first car and the excess being so large, I persuaded him to take it on the chin and not to claim. Also in his favour, he'd only renewed a month or so back, so he cancelled the policy for a refund iirc. He bought a very nice ST205 Celica and insured it with unblemished no claims. Spreadsheet showed break even point was two years / he was in profit from three years due to not having to declare a claim for the next five years....

[adsgreen]

I think you need to be careful - it's not claims you have to report but incidents irrespective of a claim.
If it can be found that say you were hit and handled it privately and failed to notify your current of successive insurance companies then your insurance could be affected.

[pclarke88738]

This makes me sick. Another reason I will be selling mine

[Yanos]

This is sickening! People that do this need torture or something worse. Really gutted for you man. Be interested to see what Audi have to say.

I'm just glad mine sits in underground car park which is heavily cctv'd or I would not sleep at night.

[Trups]

sorry to hear on this, I think its the 4th ive read this year, scumbags!

in light of this I have spoke to a mate who does engineering and I am going to see him tomo about making up some lock in nuts that have been spoken about In previous threads, he said over the phone its possible to do so lets see if he can do something for all the owners that have buckets in, could even be used for the comfort seats if needed.

trups

[C6NVS]

I'm sick to the core with this also, and I have not even be on the receiving end.

I live in SW london also. With those who have been victims of this crime, and those who are just fed up with this, is there any chance that we can get together as a group, with a contact in the police, and use a bait car to catch these punks.

I would be willing to give up 2 nights a week to watch the car and phone a hotline number to the bill as soon as I see them with an attempt.

Clearly this is going to take some organising and co-operation between us all, and the police, but I can see this as the only way to stop the frequency of this theft.

Even the discussion of this on a public form should make them start to think twice if they read it here.

Who's in?

[kd]

Also spoke to a friend at Audi who said this is the 15th they have seen this year. He is going to try and organise something at Audi for owners to meet up in a group and they can go through some suggestions, tips and tricks. Could be a good time for a few people to get together and sign something off to say something needs to be done. He works in South London so will let everyone know what he is organising and when, even if nothing could be a good london get together