Main Stealer's Service - now it's running hot!?

[GrahamS4]

The trouble is, the fault could have occured by coincidence while at Audi and have nothing to do with them. I am not saying I wouldn't have your doubts, but it's still true.

[jb7_uk]

i understand that this maybe the case, but its too much of a coincidence for me to swallow without kicking up a dirty great fuss!... 6months abuse from me and the car never misses a beat... some monkey pokes around under the bonnet for 10mins and now its all f00ked?? damn their eyeballs!

[jb7_uk]

RIGHT.. UPDATE TIME!!

ok, i spoke to main stealer Service manager today. Conversation was roughly thus (creative licence excersided liberally!):

Me - Ok, so whats the deal then?
Stealer - Well sir, i've spoken to the guys that looked at the car, and they're fairly sure you're problem lies with the viscous fan coupling.
Me - Ok... what do you mean by 'fairly sure' they were supposed to look at it on saturday and tell me what was wrong?
Stealer - Well sir, its difficult because we'd need to take the whole front of the car apart to diagnose 100% what it is. You see the viscouse fan coupling is all linked in with the air con control unit, which would explain why the air con isnt working too. but there's a chance it could be a 10 or 20 quid sensor, or then again if its not the coupling it could be the air con control unit.
Me - Ok... <brief conversation ensues about my displeasure that the car was fine when i took it too them 1st and how it wasnt when i go it back and how he says its def not their fault etc etc..>
Me - Right, so come on then brass tax, what's this gonna cost to put right then?
Stealer - Well, viscous fan coupling, filtted, including VAT would be £285 sir.
Me - Bloody hell eddie thats a lot of money?!
Stealer - Well sir like i said, it does involve taking the front bumper assembly off and a lot of labour, the part is 90 quid plus vat and then labour on top... if its even the coupling
Me - what do u mean if its even the coupling..?
Stealer - we wont know for sure its that until we take it apart, it might be a sensor. or its not impossible that it could be air con control thing.
Me - ok, so whats the worst case scenario i'm looking at then??
Stealer - difficult to say sir, sensor could be 10 - 30 quid, but then air con control unit comes in at 600 quid, and its a big job.
Me - <after initial coughing fit> WHAT?! jesus-H thats ridiculous?!
Stealer - <silence>
Me - erm.. ok then, tell me why i should have to be faced with a ridiculous bill like that potentially, imediately after a ful service?
Stealer - probably just coincidence sir....
Me - thats crazy, it was fine when i gave it to you, and not when i got it back???
Stealer - <silence>... well sir all i can suggest is we take the car in, give u a loan car for 2 days sir while we diagnose fully what the problem is, test everything properly, get the relevant part shipped in for day2 and get it fitted and back to you.
Me - ok, fair enough, but i'm gonna have to pay for that aren't i..
Stealer - well yes sir you are?
Me - why on earth should i? and another thing, why weren't these faults found at the service i paid bloody good money for?
Stealer - i'm sorry sir but i couldnt say.
Me - <i explained my displeasure at this turn of events!> so why should i have to foot the whole bill, this is sillly, what are you gonna do for me, as a gesture of good will if nothing else?
Stealer - well i guess i could take the labour price down to 70 quid an hour instead of 90 but i'm not able to do anything else as i dont think these faults are our fault.
Me - what? thats it? on 285 quid thats gonna make fudge all difference?
Stealer - well it'll come down to 240 sir rather than 285?
Me - wow! forgive me for not collapsing in amazement.

It went on from there me expressing my disgust at their custoemr service etc etc him refusing point blank that it was anything to do with them and that the fact they missed these at service was just plain unlucky.

So i'm not left with a car i can use, and they appear to have me over a barrel, trousers round my ankles pukkering up nicely for them!

Last resort is to speak to a mate who i used to work with who's a fully trained former audi technician who now teaches auto engineering and see what he advises. But looks like i'm gonna be on the wrong end of a large bill just to get my car back to thje condition it was in before i gave it to Caffyns Worthing Audi

[david7m]

Just an idea, but won't VAGCOM show a fault code if an air con sensor is down?

Have you poked around in the engine where they doing there service work and checked if any wires have been damaged or poor connections?

Dave

[ZeroK66]

I think I said this in my earlier post your chain should be as follows:

Go to the head of business for that dealership... explain your situation. Ask him to help you out.

If he refuses find out what group owns the dealership (Almost always part of a bigger group) speak to someone seniour there

If that fails then you can take it up with Audi UK Customer Services... Good luck with them cause they are the most dis-interested useless bunch of care free wasters I have ever dealt with

[QuantumJohn]

The trouble is, the fault could have occured by coincidence while at Audi and have nothing to do with them. I am not saying I wouldn't have your doubts, but it's still true.

jb7,
Grahams quote above could hold some truth. As part of the service the visicous fan probably isn't touched. However, the mechanics should do a test drive at the end of the service which means they should have spotted the hot running if the fault occured while it was in for the service.

Good luck,
John

[neckarsulm]

I'd have though they'd have run diagnostics on your car to find the fault while you waited.
Fixing it may take longer though but at least you'd know and could decide who did the work and not be obliged to pay £600+ to them.
Do any electrical plugs need undoing for the service to be performed? I know there are a few sensors on top of the airbox etc, have any of these been left undone?
From my experience, mechanics only undo what they need to and no more to avoid creating more problems so it should be easy to quickly check these though coincidences like this do also happen..

QuantumJohn

However, the mechanics should do a test drive at the end of the service which means they should have spotted the hot running if the fault occured while it was in for the service.

Would jb7 feel any better if the stealership called and told him car was now running hot rather than just gave him the car back if it wasn't before the service?

I'd be inclined to get a 2nd opinion as depending on what the fault is depends on whether it's coincidence or negligence and once the car is in the control of the stealership, you may never know the truth..

It must be frustrating jb7 - that's why I'd never use a stealership, you need to deal directly with the person who did the work as they will feel a responsibility to sort out any problems sharpish. Turnover of staff at these places is incessant so nobody will ever value your custom beyond what they can extract out of you today.

Good luck and keep us posted..

[david7m]

Why does the air con/fan affect running temp? Some cars don't have air con and run fine! Some cars have broken air con (my girlfriends Golf) and run fine! Fan is only there for overheating, not part of normal running temp, so why does this need to work when the car is driving along 'normally'?

Dave

[MCB]

My 2pence worth, bearing in mind the good posts above.

Lets just stop for a minute and think about it being our garage / business and jb7 uk (sorry Mate don't know your name) has brought his car in for a service and this happens.

Immediately our service manager should of become involved and offered to both inspect the car / VAG COM it and road test it FOC. Following this he should of then reported back to jb7 uk - hopefully discovering the problem as part of the process. Thereby bottoming any doubt as to whether the responsibility lies with them or if it in fact was coincidentally a component failure of some description (Unlikely in my point of view but who knows?).

So what do you do mate? Well pretty much as ZeroK66 says kick f…..g ass! You have paid a premium price for an exemplary service (Deffo no pun), do not rest until you have received this.

And Good Luck mate

[neckarsulm]

Regarding the air con not working, which is an even bigger mystery, he said if they were to fix this they'd need to re-gas the system and then diagnose why its not working... but the whole system was refreshed amd regassed just before i bought the car in May!? and was working perfectly, icey cold, before the service.

Are you sure this wasn't due to a leak and the gas has leaked out slowly over the last few months? Again VAG COM will tell you why it isn't working in a jiffy - low pressure switch (no gas), high pressure switch (overheated a/c system) or you can see if a/c clutch is engaging via VAG COM and inspect it visually to see if it is engaged (spinning on inside and outside).

I'm bit confused as to how fans can be spinning but not working properly unless it's too slow?

David 7m.
A car with faulty a/c system but OK fans should run OK.
Working a/c and faulty fans is a different story.
Mk4 Golf v6 and v5 burn out their low speed resisitor on their rad fans due to climate control being used constantly, this means instead of low speed fan coming on when engine reaches 90 degrees (with a/c off otherwise it would be already on), the coolant temp has to climb to approx 100 degrees for the high speed fan to engage and cool everything down.
The worst bit is the a/c will still operate even without the fan kicking in like it should do (it's doesn't check fan is actually working!) and the system pressure in the a/c can get very high and eventually kill the compressor.
As for how this relates to the S4 here I don't know, I know viscous couplings for A4s are a common fault - what they do exactly I don't know!

[jb7_uk]

Hi folks, cheers for the awsome replies... they're muchly appreciated

Here's where we are now:

I spoke to a friend of mine who i used to work with (he teaches auto engineering at big further/higher college) who used to work at a different local audi dealership and is fully audi trained. His advise was thus.. dont take it back to the new Worthing dealership (i'll explain why in a jiffy) but to get it over to the dealership he used to work at, and get two guys he used to work with who are master level technicians to have a look. So, the car is now booked in with this different local dealership (who were extremely understanding of the situation whn i explained it to them) and it will be getting a thorough look over and a diagnosis i trust (Dave's a good man and if he says these guys know their stuff i#d tend to trust that personally).

Also, i rang the RAC Warranty (while i was getting all hot under the collar about the worthing audi guys i actually forgot i have a 5* RAC warranty on the car which i got when i bought it! ) people and the good news is, it looks like this should all be covered by that which is nice, the only thing i'll have to pay for is labour costs above £25 p/hr.

Now, the reason for giving up completely on Worthing audi is as follows! Until the beginning of this year, it was a caffyn's Rover dealership when i closed and lay seemingly abandonned. Then, come april ish it was completely bull dozed, and afetr an extensive building program, opened a couple of months ago as a fully fledged Audi Main Dealership. However... this isn't quite the case! its still a caffyn's dealership, and still employing all (or most) of the original rover mechanics. Dave is still mates with a lot of the audi techs form the other dealership and they've all seen these worthing guys turning up on the audi training courses, but only in the last month or two, some of them haven't even finished they're first training! So, having been so totally dismayed by the service i received at worthing and finding out its a bunch of un-trained rover mechanics there, i dont want them going anywhere near my car again! lol.

I'd just rather forget the whole sordid incident and get the car fixed and back to glorious working order again by people who know what they're doing and i trust (even if it is on the word of someone else...i trust dave, he knows his stuff) So, now that i've got the warranty people on side too the cost of the repairs isnt as much of an issue so its booked in with the good people of Brighon Audi who've been nothing but a pleasure to deal with next wednesday. Hopefully she'll be back working good as new with me behind the wheel soon after that

I'll let u guys know how i get on!

[ZeroK66]

Good result... still sickening... the dodgy Rover techs should have sorted and PAID for it!! Shame RAC has to pay but hay ho!

[jb7_uk]

you're not wrong ZeroK, and the head of business at worthing and customer service at audi HQ will be getting an extremely choice letter explaining what happened and how disguested i am that a garage all branded up as an Audi main dealer could provide such a shocking service. I dont suppose anything will come of it but you never know, someone may read it and have a choice word or two with the audi guys and hopefully get them to pull their socks up. I'm not overly fussed though, i certainly won't be going back there so won't have to deal with them again.

At the end of the day, as long as i get my ride back all sorted, then ill be happy.

[ZeroK66]

Sounds like a normal day at an Audi dealer to me though. Seems you may have found a good dealer though at the end of all of this so going forward you may have a more pleasant experience. My car will never see another dealer again and I will never buy a new Audi.

I could easily go out and buy a brand spankers RS4 tomorrow... but A: I have more sense than cents and B: Audi will NEVER get my business again and they will never get a good word from me. I have family and friends and colleagues now that have shyed away from Audi thanks to their continued diss-interest in customer satisfaction. In coming years I should loose them a couple hundred grand and if more people like me are out there, over all they will be down on quite a bit of revenue!

[MCB]

Great news, hope it doesn't cost you much to get it sorted.

From what you say are you going to check that the original service was carried out correctly?