rubbish dealer

[craigvmax]

Ok, so the story goes (will try to make brief)

bought my RS4 from main dealer sep 2005, was bought unseen but told was immaculate, stonechips done & had had the audi 110 check & full warranty.

On collection I immediately saw a dent in the door & stonechips hadnt been done.

dealer agreed to pay for this, annoying because I had to waste time putting car in but hey, ho, could live with it.

On driving the car I noticed a clunk/thud from the back on gearchange/power take up (as mentioned on my other posts), also there were a few other more minor issues but also the brake warning light was on & brakes were crap.

I live a long way from the supplying dealer so booked the car into a south london dealer who are very close to my house. To cut a long story short they had the car once for 2 weeks & told me had solved all problems, had the car back & was exactly the same.

Booked it in again (getting pretty annoyed) & they had it for a week & said couldnt find any faults & nothing was amiss on the car aside from a wiring loom to the brakes causing the light to come on, this was now fixed.

Got car back, guess what, still the same, arrrrggghhhhhh!

decided to give up and use another dealer, within the car being in for 2 hours I had a call.

Engine mountings broken & also bushes on the diff broken, should be aparent from underneath apparently. They noticed the power thing but hadnt solved it yet & noticed all the other things i had mentioned (lucky as I thought I was losing my marbles!)

The one thing they did say was that the reason for crap brakes was badly corroded disks which need to be replaced at £800+ & asked if the car had been left standing for long periods of time, no, was used every day, therefore disks must have been corroded when I had the car (am I wrong?) Supplying dealer dont want to know...

Your thoughts pls gents ?

Also, if I do need to replace disks are there better ones than audi ones ?

Thanks a lot.

Rant mode off

[s4woody]

hi craig..can u send me a pm with the dealers name cos i used to work at 1 in sw london and if its my old 1 i still have sum goods friends there that mite rethink there position..just a thought...

[tartan_rob]

Get the report from the decent garage and write to the garage you purchased it from cc'ing Audi UK and Trading Std's. A call to trading std's will help too, they won't do anything initially but will log the call for you. Failing that, go down the safety route and statuatory rights and perhaps a formal complaint to Audi UK, cc a local counsellor, that always helps......he will have an obligation to help you.....and of course has contacts within papers etc.

[craigvmax]

thanks guys, does it sound reasonable that the corrosion must have been there when i got the car? surely a car used every day wouldnt get such bad brakes ?

alslo, any clues on alternative disks ?

thanks.

[harry]

without upgrading rest of brake kit?

[derdle]

Hi Craig, sorry to hear of these probs with your dealer. Surprisingly engine mounts are not included on the 110 point check! I think the clunk on drive take up is quite common, there is a posting I think on the S4 forum about possible remedies

I'd agree with TartanRob, and would claim that the vehicle was not described properly so that it was mis-respresented to you.

Take heart, normally Audi Customer Care tends to iron these problems out pretty quickly.

[harry]

Is the corrosion still on the disks? Light surface corrosion can build up quite quickly and is easily removed by standing on the brakes a couple of times when decelerating from say 80/90 mph.

Your engine mounts are also broken? Suggests the car has been horsed more than a few times. Perhaps even been on a few track days. The extra strain and pressure created from continual and numerous hard acceleration/braking may cause this IMHO.

If the disks are seriously corroded it may be they were taken off the car to make way for an upgraded brake system (particular to track days yet not exclusive) and left lying around/ not prepped properly for storage. The geezer who sold the car to the dealer/dealership themselves may have re-fitted the original brake kit to sell on (common practise), hoping that the new customer would take the hit on replacement so they dont have to. As you bought the car blind they may have pulled a fast one on you. Et voila!

I wonder if you can trace the previous owner(s) throught this site to try and shed some light on this unfortunate and potentially expensive situation...mmm...

[tartan_rob]

you can trace the previous owner through the V5. If you havenb't asready got a new one, contact DVLA and get one.

[craigvmax]

all except the disks is being done under warranty & whites (who have it now) say other than that it is immaculate so I'm not overly concerned.

Re braking, yes, i have done some monumental braking from pretty big numbers to see if it made any difference, it didnt. All help very much appreciated.

[rs666]

Contact a Moderator here and see if its on the RS4 register. You may find it is a known car and find out about any modifications and /or history of usage.

[Jon]

its not y776bms is it?

[PhilT]

its not y776bms is it?

That's the one that makes entire villages run for cover!!!

[Bigfatbob]

From my recent similar experience it is well worth checking the report from the last service before you bought the car, this should be on the system with the Audi garage. It should tell you the state of the disks and anything else that was picked up. Also an email to Audi UK worked well for me, they phoned me 2 days later to discuss the email. Keep us informed.

[craigvmax]

yep, will certainly keep you informed. i emailed the supplying dealer & cc'd it to their head of business on friday and yesterday but no response whatsoever.

I will give it until the end of play today & then resend the email cc'd to dave ovendon who I believe is the head of customer service at audi uk.

It's not the car mentioned above by the way.

[PhilT]

If you have finance, then the finance company is also a good one..... It could be classed as fraud if the value of the goods does not tally up.