Goodwill payments from Audi

[Steve vRS]

My ex has had the injectors on her Q2 1.2 petrol engine fail. The car is 3 months out of warranty but has a full Audi dealer history. It looks like the repair will cost north of £500 notes.

Is it reasonable for Audi to contribute? I feel that they should. She has asked me to help her write an email to them. I was going to quote the sale of goods act. Any other suggestions? Any one has any success from a similar situation?

[Davie]

Normal process would be that the car would have to be diagnosed by a main dealer who can then instigate a goodwill claim and then await a response. But you'd need to be prepared to stomach the diagnostic costs initially in case the manufacturer declined the claim, thus you'd be liable for the dealerships time. I'd say it's likely they'd consider a goodwill gesture if it's lower miles, full dealer history and just out of warranty period. Not sure if wade in quoting sale of goods until it's at a dealer, faults confirmed and the ball is rolling and even then I'd await a response first, then take it from there.

[Steve vRS]

Thanks

It’s at a dealer at the moment. So they look for the goodwill from Audi rather than us contacting audi customer service?

[Steve vRS]

Any other experiences or advice?

[Pistonheader101]

get it done at a good independent instead - often works out cheaper than even if goodwill was included

[VonSenger]

Steve vRS said:

Any other experiences or advice?

This happened to me with an awful q7 we owned. Mmi unit failed along with all the injectors and one throttle body. Biggest pile of st I've ever owned. 6 months out of warranty, they contributed about 20%. May as well have had it done somewhere else as it was still north of £5k.
Needless to say, sold the pos as soon as it was fixed. Never again.

[HTP99]

Steve vRS said:

Thanks

It’s at a dealer at the moment. So they look for the goodwill from Audi rather than us contacting audi customer service?

Yep, if it is anything like the manufacturer who I work for, let the service department deal with it first, it does help if they know you and you have a good relationship with them as they will fight your corner.

3 months out of warranty and FDSH, one would hope that you will at least get a decent contribution, recently we manged 20% contribution on a 6 year old car that was 3 years out of warranty but FDSH and we knew the customer well.

However I have heard that VAG are pretty poor when it comes to this sort of thing.

Let us know how you get on.

[Sheepshanks]

Steve vRS said:

My ex has had the injectors on her Q2 1.2 petrol engine fail.

All of them?

Has she owned the car from new?

[Rozzers]

Pretty crap if that’s all Audi offer, in the past I’ve paid nothing but the diagnosis fees and the dealer made the pleas to the manufacturer, not me.

It’s the only real reason I use dealers for servicing in the first 3 years, and if possible be as chatty as I can with their advisers.

[Steve vRS]

Sheepshanks said:

All of them?

Has she owned the car from new?

Don’t know how many.

Yes, owned from new.

[Deerfoot]

Steve vRS said:

Any other experiences or advice?

Not with Audi but I had an electric boot motor fail on an Accord.

It was over a year out of warranty but the Honda dealer applied to Honda UK for goodwill as it was a known issue.

Anyway, Honda agreed to supply the part and I paid the labour which I thought was a decent result.

[Sheepshanks]

HTP99 said:

However I have heard that VAG are pretty poor when it comes to this sort of thing.

We have a couple of VAG models in the family and both the dealers and UK agents seem particularly hard faced - the dealers especially so and of course service advisors etc are targetted to screw as much money out of customers as possible.

It's completely against the service departments interests to try and help out. It also seems to me that if you do contact the brand, they go 100% on what the dealer tells them. Bear in mind that when you (as a customer) call, you're not speaking to VAG, you're talking to someone who works for Capita, in call centre.

I'd also say to the OP that, sadly, it's still a bad idea to let your wife talk to dealers - my girls are in their 30's, I've tried it a couple of time and dealers just try to steal money off them. Happened last week in older daughter's SEAT Ateca - it was recovered with a broken part, they told her 'damaged, so not warranty'. Within 10 seconds of me talking to the service manager he agreed to cover it.

[ds666]

Why should they contribute anything ?

[Sheepshanks]

I think that must be for one injector.

[spikeyhead]

ds666 said:

Why should they contribute anything ?

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

[Sheepshanks]

spikeyhead said:

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

None of that matter to the service department. They're completely disconnected from sales.

[Trevor555]

Sheepshanks said:

spikeyhead said:

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

None of that matter to the service department. They're completely disconnected from sales.

And if the job goes through warranty the dealer has to charge a much lower labour rate.

So they'll just prefer the customer to pay up.

[MitchT]

Sheepshanks said:

spikeyhead said:

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

None of that matter to the service department. They're completely disconnected from sales.

If a car manufacturer or dealership chooses to have two departments never talk to each other than that's their own stupid fault. As your after-sales experience can influence your future purchasing decisions any car manufacturer with an ounce of common sense will make sure that customer experiences with all departments are aired in one open setting and that the whole brand experience is managed as one cohesive entity.

[normalbloke]

Sheepshanks said:

spikeyhead said:

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

None of that matter to the service department. They're completely disconnected from sales.

Your response is covered by the last line of the quote. The two sides are connected.

[Hammer67]

Trevor555 said:

Sheepshanks said:

spikeyhead said:

Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll spend elsewhere?
Perhaps because if you keep a customer happy they'll spend again with you?
Perhaps because if you upset a customer they'll tell ten friends not to spend money with you.
Perhaps because they aren't short sighted in running their business.

None of that matter to the service department. They're completely disconnected from sales.

And if the job goes through warranty the dealer has to charge a much lower labour rate.

So they'll just prefer the customer to pay up.

Not necessarily true.
When I left main dealer aftersales the Warranty Labour rate was set by the manufacturer based on the Dealers Recovery Rate.
The headline Retail Labour Rate might be say £100 ph but overall the actual rate achieved would be lower, say £80 as a rolling average. That would be what the dealer would then charge on warranty jobs.
Therefore the dealer actually retained the same/very similar rate from both retail and warranty work.

Note, I never worked for a VAG dealer so they may be different but the half dozen other makes I did work for all set warranty labour rates this way.