Stealership servicing - shoddy and a rip off!!

[Golich]

Just had my 60K service done last week - £340.

Now you might think £340 for a service isn't that bad. Ordinarilly I wouldn't have thought it was too bad either given the perfromance of these beasties until I looked into the quality of the service work performed. All they did was changed the oil, plugs, oil and air filter and measured my tire tread.

I always thought they spent some time giving the car a good look over lubricating hinges etc thus justifying the £340!

I deliberately didn't tell them about the 4 diagnostic trouble codes stored in the car that I'd found with VAGCOM and the more obvious diff to prop shaft seal leaking oil.

And a 20mm long x 10mm wide strip of rust on the inside of the rear passenger door which had they been checking the condition of the hinges they would have spotted!

I did tell them for the second time to check for a very slight lumpiness to the engine which VAGCOM confirms a missfire. They didn't fix that despite telling me otherwise.

So I says to the service receptionist. What about these problems. Look of confusion "Errr let me talk to the foreman."

Apparrently they only check for error codes associated with the engine!

Eh? It takes exactly 2-3mins to complete an automatic error code check. Main dealers are in theory the only guys who can do this! I just happen to know a bit about this car and have the software to do this myself!"

"So how was the leaking oil missed?"

"They did notice it but didn't think it was that bad."

"It's leaking onto my drive. They have been reporting the front bushes splitting for over a year now - but they don't think they are that bad!"

The upshot is I was charged 2.5hrs of labour for a oil and filter change.

The oil was £93 for new Mobil ESP 5W30 oil where it used to cost £33 for SYNTRA. (I checked out the price of this new Mobil stuff a quick internet search came up with £40 for a pack of 4x1L bottles. The We typically need 6L and I always take a 1L spare just in case. So £70 tops and that's retail small quantity order!)

£67 for spark plugs
£4 for a sump plug and washer.

I am now going to look into buying this stuff myself and seriously consider servicing the car myself. I'll keep all the receipts as I do anyway for proof of service history as the main dealer stamp only confirms an oil change etc and is not a true indication of how the car has been cared for.

Rant over.

PS Anyone know where we can get this mobil oil ESP 5W30 and plugs cheap? I can't remeber what we dicided about group buys but this would be a case for one. Even if you don't service the car yourself you can hand over the parts.

[dace]

Totally agree with you! Main stealers are a waste of time!! I was charged 160 quid for an oil and filter change.
I will be using Synta gold from now on and doing the change every 5,000 miles. Long life oil toooooo dear.

APS charge less than half the price of Audi and are thoroughly passionate about their work and our cars...

[JonnyX]

Have been servicing my own car for that last 2 1/2 years. As you say, I can't understand why there is so much emphasis
on main dealer service history. To my mind, and in my experience I should add, this just indicates that the car has been
shoddily maintained. I change the oil and filter every 6 months and all the filters at least once a year. In my opinion, this
as good as what you would get for paying Audi 90 quid an hour.

They quoted me 160GBP + VAT the other day just to change the gearbox oil. I couldn't help but laugh in their faces.

Main dealers are only interested in lucrative warranty work, not independent consumers who know when they are being
taken for a ride.

[Rs4Fan]

Just had my 60K service done last week - £340.

Which dealer?

[Golich]

Just had my 60K service done last week - £340.

Which dealer?

Local dealer - Specialist Cars in Aberdeen.

[tombs]

I'm sure that not all dealers are the same; I’ve had good service from Tondbridge and Espom dealerships. But I agree on the servicing front, my good friend S4Woody showed me how to service my car, bought 8litres of Mobil1 for around £55 from a local motor factors, the spark plugs from www.mister-solutions.co.uk (PFR7Q x 6 £55.81 inc delivery), the rest Air Filter, pollen filter, oil filter & plug for £30.00 from Epsom Audi. The whole job took around 1-1/2 hours.

I’m also a little concerned when it comes to resale of the car the lack of actual service stamps in the service book will deter potential buyers if I decided from now on to service the car myself (or get my mate to do it!).

I took a load of pictures with the aim of posting on here the whole procedure, but it seemed like a simple job once shown what goes where and what to look for. So, I haven’t bothered because I’m under the impression that most on here are knowledgeable about this stuff and wouldn’t be interested, what do you think?

[harry]

Au contrair mon ami. I'm a total novice when it comes to this kind of stuff so any guide would be useful.

[Brooner]

Here here i speak for all Mechanicly challenge No job is so simple not to have a step by step guide

[s4woody]

and he got a nice sandwich and tea and cake all thrown in 4 free..dnt get that at a stealer..

[Golich]

Its all easy when you know how but the simplest of jobs is all relative. While I'm all for showing people how to do things, it's really not be recommended that everyone have a go at servicing or working on their own cars. This really isn't the car to be practicing your first service on unsupervised. I'd always recommend you are objective about your abilities. I've made a lot of mistakes over the years but I started working on engines when I was 10 I am now 35! Knackering a lawn mower or a 1.1 Fiesta engine doesn't hurt like a £5K+ RS4 engine because you put the wrong oil in or the wrong temp of plug. 25 years later I'm still making mistakes just not the basic ones!

Never the less I have finally got around to reducing the file size of some of the numerous pics I've taken to that more manageable for inserting into a word doc so I can produce a "How to.." series. It would be great to see others contribute to this like what they have in the Audiworld forum.

I'll get them sent to Phil as soon as I get around to preparing them. Don't let me stop the rest of you. However, in relative terms I know very little about this car its all pretty basic stuff.

PS Brooner - you're too modest...

[Golich]

and he got a nice sandwich and tea and cake all thrown in 4 free..dnt get that at a stealer..

I'm coming around your place for my next service

[Brooner]

Yes i'v just had a massive bill put the car in for a timing belt change but thought i'll get anything else that is acsessed by removing the front bumper the list as follows
078109119J 0702253 Tooth Belt£ 35.00
078109243R 5901896 Roller £29.45
078109244H Realy roller £26.96
078109479E Belt dampener £81.28
078109487A Lever £26.34
078121006AX Water pump £38.95
078903137L Belt £28.18
441201511C 190084 Fule filter £13.06
8D0199339E Stop £7.00
8D199379AD Mounting x2 £134.38
G012A8FM1 9400377 Cooladd1 x3 £17.55
N0138128 9300010 Washer x2 £0.38
N0138149 Washer x2 £0.34
N10205601 Bolt £0.47
Premo Premium Delivery £5.50 god knows what this is ???
ZGB00Q096600 B/Clean£150 x2 £2.20 again no idea ???

Replaced timing belt , tensioner, water pump, pump belt and aux belt £280.00
Replaced front and side engine mountings £350.00
Replaced fule filter and washer £35.00
total labour charge £665.00
Total of parts £447.04
VAT £194.61
Grand total of £1306.65
and yes the dealer has BIG windows

[Olly_K]

im in the same boat, the rs4 i';ve just bought has full audi history, but I think I'll be taking mine to AmD in the future. I just dont trust them with my pride and joy

[Golich]

Yes i'v just had a massive bill put the car in for a timing belt change but thought i'll get anything else that is acsessed by removing the front bumper the list as follows
078109119J 0702253 Tooth Belt£ 35.00
078109243R 5901896 Roller £29.45
078109244H Realy roller £26.96
078109479E Belt dampener £81.28
078109487A Lever £26.34
078121006AX Water pump £38.95
078903137L Belt £28.18
441201511C 190084 Fule filter £13.06
8D0199339E Stop £7.00
8D199379AD Mounting x2 £134.38
G012A8FM1 9400377 Cooladd1 x3 £17.55
N0138128 9300010 Washer x2 £0.38
N0138149 Washer x2 £0.34
N10205601 Bolt £0.47
Premo Premium Delivery £5.50 god knows what this is ???
ZGB00Q096600 B/Clean£150 x2 £2.20 again no idea ???

Replaced timing belt , tensioner, water pump, pump belt and aux belt £280.00
Replaced front and side engine mountings £350.00
Replaced fule filter and washer £35.00
total labour charge £665.00
Total of parts £447.04
VAT £194.61
Grand total of £1306.65
and yes the dealer has BIG windows

Nice post Mr. B. Appreciate the time spent with part No.s and prices

That's some bill though!!

[ScottyBoy]

It has just cost me 260 quid at the local stealers to replace an air pipe of some description that goes between two something or others because the plastic clip that holds it in place had snapped throwing up this code:-

17536 p1128 035
Bank1,mixture adaption (mult.)
system too lean
sporadic

17538 p1130 035
Bank2,mixture adaption (mult.)
system too lean
sporadic

B*****ds i need them and they know it.