I have bought the worse used approved car ever!
Discussion
I have bought the worse used approved car ever!
This may be a phrase that you have uttered to yourself at one time or another, particularly as you find yourself staring at yet another fault light on the dash or listening to another expensive sounding noise entering the comfort of the cabin, but I think I really have!
First a little history, I always loved saloons, its something about the length of the car and the space in the cabin that I like. I blame this on my Dad’s mark 3 Ford Granada Ghia that he had as a company car when I was 5! As a result of this “saloon fetish” I always wanted an Audi A4 it’s a car that I have loved the shape of and followed through its evolution. So when my 59 plate Volvo C30 T5 R Design was constantly misbehaving, and being repaired by a dealership that was about as helpful and competent as room full of blind monkeys with spanners, I thought now is the chance. I browsed the Audi used approved ads on their website on a daily basis looking for that perfect car. I missed a couple that sold too quickly; including one in Liverpool that was sold 20 minutes are going online! But perseverance paid off and I found one at an Audi dealer near Luton.
Some of you maybe thinking, “Why a used approved, you’re paying more than you need to” and you would be correct. I have always preferred to buy used approved as you have the back up of the warranty and the manufacturer’s customer service big boys which can be most useful. It’s a premium I’m happy to pay.
After a quick visit to the Audi Dealer near Luton, the car, a 58 plate Audi A4 2.0T (211ps) S-line with 39,000 miles on it, was bought and delivered to my home on the south coast a week later. It looked awesome gleaming on its 19 inch S line wheels and in the odd shade of Dark Grey that looks so good on an Audi. I was so happy, until…
About a week after I got the car I noticed that on occasion I was having odd feedback through the clutch pedal that wasn’t there before, almost a sort of vibration. Over time this got worse and I booked it in to my local Audi dealer expecting a short resolution and a warranty repair. It turned out to be that the clutch and dreaded Dual Mass Flywheel were knackered and needed replacing; however these are not warranty items! I was not happy and decided to enlist the support of the Audi Central Customer Service team via social media (twitter). This turned out to be the best idea as they were very helpful and persuaded the dealership that I bought the car from they needed to pay the £2,500 it would cost to fix. All this only 4 months after buying the used approved car that had undergone a 150 point check before I had purchased it!
So 3 weeks later and I had my car back and all was right in the world of tubbyman. Scroll forward to January the following year, I’m having problems putting it in 1st gear and the whole gearbox feels lumpy. Off I go to my friendly local Audi dealer again, who drive the car and agree there is an issue. They drain the gearbox oil and find its got metal fragments in it (how big they never told me) but it needs to be stripped and they find I need a new 1st and 2nd gear complete with the synchros! My heart sank as I was beginning to think that this car is a complete Jonah, seems to have been a reps race car who didn’t know what the left hand pedal was for! But they fixed it, this time under warranty, they wouldn’t tell me how much the final cost to the warranty was but I saw a figure of £3,000+ on a piece of paperwork, and it took 4 weeks to do at main dealer rates! I still wasn’t happy that my pride and joy was turning into a lemon and again spoke to Audi UK who were very helpful and offered to extend the warranty for a further 12 months. Brilliant I thought, now it’s all going to be solved and nothing else will go wrong, or will it?
Fast forward to now, its August only 7 months since the gearbox was done and I’m finding that my oil consumption is going up. Now Audi always say that 1,000 miles per litre is normal and I have seen similar on other VAG group cars I have owned but I seemed to be managing 500 miles on a litre and it was getting worse.
So off I go again to a dealership who must absolutely love me with the amount of huge expensive jobs I keep putting their way and tell them my new tail of woe and ask them to look at it. They currently have my car on a 600 mile controlled road test to confirm what we all think its going to be, piston rings! This will mean a further £3,000-£5,000 bill to take the head off and do “open heart surgery” as the service agent told me. Thankfully it is under the extended, extended warranty. I would like to point out that I have only had the car 18 months and it is only now on 53,000 miles not the kind of mileage you would expect this sort of issue at.
So dear reader thank you for sticking with this increasingly long tail of issues, but this is why I think I have bought the worse used approved car ever! I invite you to do better.
This may be a phrase that you have uttered to yourself at one time or another, particularly as you find yourself staring at yet another fault light on the dash or listening to another expensive sounding noise entering the comfort of the cabin, but I think I really have!
First a little history, I always loved saloons, its something about the length of the car and the space in the cabin that I like. I blame this on my Dad’s mark 3 Ford Granada Ghia that he had as a company car when I was 5! As a result of this “saloon fetish” I always wanted an Audi A4 it’s a car that I have loved the shape of and followed through its evolution. So when my 59 plate Volvo C30 T5 R Design was constantly misbehaving, and being repaired by a dealership that was about as helpful and competent as room full of blind monkeys with spanners, I thought now is the chance. I browsed the Audi used approved ads on their website on a daily basis looking for that perfect car. I missed a couple that sold too quickly; including one in Liverpool that was sold 20 minutes are going online! But perseverance paid off and I found one at an Audi dealer near Luton.
Some of you maybe thinking, “Why a used approved, you’re paying more than you need to” and you would be correct. I have always preferred to buy used approved as you have the back up of the warranty and the manufacturer’s customer service big boys which can be most useful. It’s a premium I’m happy to pay.
After a quick visit to the Audi Dealer near Luton, the car, a 58 plate Audi A4 2.0T (211ps) S-line with 39,000 miles on it, was bought and delivered to my home on the south coast a week later. It looked awesome gleaming on its 19 inch S line wheels and in the odd shade of Dark Grey that looks so good on an Audi. I was so happy, until…
About a week after I got the car I noticed that on occasion I was having odd feedback through the clutch pedal that wasn’t there before, almost a sort of vibration. Over time this got worse and I booked it in to my local Audi dealer expecting a short resolution and a warranty repair. It turned out to be that the clutch and dreaded Dual Mass Flywheel were knackered and needed replacing; however these are not warranty items! I was not happy and decided to enlist the support of the Audi Central Customer Service team via social media (twitter). This turned out to be the best idea as they were very helpful and persuaded the dealership that I bought the car from they needed to pay the £2,500 it would cost to fix. All this only 4 months after buying the used approved car that had undergone a 150 point check before I had purchased it!
So 3 weeks later and I had my car back and all was right in the world of tubbyman. Scroll forward to January the following year, I’m having problems putting it in 1st gear and the whole gearbox feels lumpy. Off I go to my friendly local Audi dealer again, who drive the car and agree there is an issue. They drain the gearbox oil and find its got metal fragments in it (how big they never told me) but it needs to be stripped and they find I need a new 1st and 2nd gear complete with the synchros! My heart sank as I was beginning to think that this car is a complete Jonah, seems to have been a reps race car who didn’t know what the left hand pedal was for! But they fixed it, this time under warranty, they wouldn’t tell me how much the final cost to the warranty was but I saw a figure of £3,000+ on a piece of paperwork, and it took 4 weeks to do at main dealer rates! I still wasn’t happy that my pride and joy was turning into a lemon and again spoke to Audi UK who were very helpful and offered to extend the warranty for a further 12 months. Brilliant I thought, now it’s all going to be solved and nothing else will go wrong, or will it?
Fast forward to now, its August only 7 months since the gearbox was done and I’m finding that my oil consumption is going up. Now Audi always say that 1,000 miles per litre is normal and I have seen similar on other VAG group cars I have owned but I seemed to be managing 500 miles on a litre and it was getting worse.
So off I go again to a dealership who must absolutely love me with the amount of huge expensive jobs I keep putting their way and tell them my new tail of woe and ask them to look at it. They currently have my car on a 600 mile controlled road test to confirm what we all think its going to be, piston rings! This will mean a further £3,000-£5,000 bill to take the head off and do “open heart surgery” as the service agent told me. Thankfully it is under the extended, extended warranty. I would like to point out that I have only had the car 18 months and it is only now on 53,000 miles not the kind of mileage you would expect this sort of issue at.
So dear reader thank you for sticking with this increasingly long tail of issues, but this is why I think I have bought the worse used approved car ever! I invite you to do better.
tubbyman said:
Audi
Well there's your problem. There's only one make of car that people constantly moan about being in and out of the garage for repairs in the office. VAG.Apart from clutches, injectors, wheel bearings, electric handbrakes, ecus, random electrical faults requiring the dash out and days of fault finding, they seem to be great.
My car (BMW), was full of faults from the dealer. But then they did say it wasn't in their approved scheme...which with hindsight was a bit of a hint. Still they repaired the fuel leak eventually...
Bloke at work bought a 2011 (I think) A4 diesel that has spend weeks on end in the garage while they fixed the gearbox - I think it had more than one box putin - it took months to eventually sort.
I assumed it was an auto/DSG box, which you'd imagine might be have gremlins in a newish car - but no - boggo manual..
I assumed it was an auto/DSG box, which you'd imagine might be have gremlins in a newish car - but no - boggo manual..
Well this is again a bog standard manual gearbox 6 speed nothing special. Just minced by the sounds of it. I think, in terms of the cars future, I will keep it at least until February next year when the warranty runs out and then make a decision based on what faults it has at the time! Trying to save for a wedding at the moment so car buying cash is limited.
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