According to reuters, a pair of law firms in the Philadelphia area have apparently filed a class action suit against audi because of faulty fuel guages in 98 and newer A6's (which Audi is recalling over anyway). Sooo .... lots of owners maybe will end up with a few dollars, the cars will get more expensive, and a few lawyers will get the real windfall - rock on America !

sorry - dont know how to do the URL - but read it today under "automobile", on AOL

on A6's. The article mentions that more models may be affected???<ul><li><a href="http://www.auto.com/reuters1.htm">http://www.auto.com/reuters1.htm</a</li></ul>

This is too funny, I called my service advisor this morning about this!<ul><li><a href="http://live.altavista.com/scripts/editorial.dll?ei=1935778&ern=y">Audi recall</a></li></ul>

So what do we do to join the law suit? My 98 was a real pain in the ass for a long time until they fixed it. What would we expect to get, some kind of a cash settlement or perhaps better a good discount on a new car. I got Audi to pay 1 month of my lease while the car was tied up waiting for the always hard to get parts. Maybe we should contact the law firm?

the attorneys took their cut. That is based on a $10,000,000 (ten million) settlement. The attorneys would be awarded anywhere from 30-60% of the settlement and the actual A6 owners (estimated at y/e 2000 to be 76,109).

I engage as many as four separate law firms at any one time in the course of normal business so I am not anti-attorney. However, class action lawsuits are completely void of benefit for the actual consumer. We realize virtually nothing in the form of $$ damages.

It is the legal equivalent of a pyramid scheme. Those who are first in reap all of the reward. The vast majority are losers. Ultimately, we will simply pay for our own awards. Price increases across the board to offset any costs associated with a lawsuit will be passed on to us. Parts (if you can get them :-), new car prices, lower overall resale, etc. . .

Most other car manufacturers would simply swat away a class action suit by throwing a few bucks at the people. Audi on the other hand, thanks to 60 minutes and mass hysteria, will suffer far beyond their competitors. Anyone who had any inkling of doubt surrounding Audi's real and perceived problems will opt for another vehicle.

I conjecture that a successful class action lawsuit will lop about 15-20% off Audi resale values near term and 8-12% over the long term horizon.

It sounds as if I am blaming the frustrated owners for this problem. This is not the case. I am completely frustrated with Audi for the lack of proactive damage control. They were in control of this situation and could have contained the primary damage and mitigated collateral damage (across the board brand damage).

This could have been accomplished by over feeding A6 owners with information pertaining to the remedies and solutions that would be offered. I can understand and sympathize with the owners who filed the suit (same fuel sending unit malfunction) but the attorneys are going to really cause the damage while reaping the rewards.

Oh well, I guess I really will be keeping this car for at least seven years. Maybe by then the new fuel sensors will be in and most of the bad publicity will have abated. I can hear it now "I'm not buying an Audi, they have bad gas tanks that cause you to run out of gas randomly."

Oh yeah, and they blow up if you put too much gas in them, and oh yeah, the gas tanks leak fuel, and oh yeah, the gas tanks cause the cars to spin off the road into trees, and oh yeah, Audi says they are installing ESP in the A6 drivers brains to sense when they are low on fuel.

Hey, I'm not letting some car maker implant ESP in my skull at some plant in some Fahr ;-) away country.

Brian and his .99 cents.

You've got a lot to get off your chest. I agree we won't see any real $$$, and as far as I'm concerned that's OK. Audi should have done a recall in the first place - I'm not interested in compensation, I'm interested in a working gas gauge. But if the lawyers are right, and Audi dithered on this for 2 years, then maybe they should have to pony up some dough.

I don't think you 60% contingency fee is right. These fees are negotiable depending on the size of the hoped-for settlement and in some jurisdictions are regulated by statute.

and came up with those figures. The class action was filed in PA if I read correctly. I am not sure what the limits are in that jurisdiction for "fees." However, the cap is at one-third of the settlement but (if I remember correctly from experience) that excludes certain costs that are not classified as "fees."

Perhaps finding another 30% in additional costs is too high an estimate but I have learned to never underestimate an attorney's creativity. Especially when it comes to out of pocket expenses.

I am most definitely with you. All I need is a new fuel sensor to be satisfied.

Audios Amigos

Juan Valdez