Here is the story of my current adventure with Barrier Motors in Bellevue:

I dropped my 99 1.8TQMS off August 11 @ 8:00am for my 10k service. After leaving 2 messages to find out the status of my car I decided to drive over there to find out what was going on. I arrive about 3:00pm to discover they had scratched my right front 17" BBS wheel. "Kevin" offered to have the wheel repainted at Queen City Auto and wanted me to leave my car until the wheel was finished. Um...no thanks! I told him to just put the donut on so I can take my car home (I was flying to California for the weekend). Kevin said he would call me Monday morning to give me an update. After 1 hour and 30 minutes they finally gave me my car back. An hour and a half! That is ridiculous! I can change all 4 wheels in 20 minutes! But anyway...

I waited all day Monday and left 1 message in the morning for someone to give me a call. Of course no one called me. I show up at 5:00pm to pick up my wheel. When I get there I ask Kevin why he didn't give me a call. He said rather stupidly, "Oh...I uh..I thought you were going to bring it in at noon." I then asked him if he got my message to which he replied, "Oh..uh..I though I heard you say you would just pick it up." I'm getting REALLY annoyed and tell him that I just want my wheel back, NOW. Some other guy comes out with it and offers to mount it back onto my car....the next day! Give me a F@&KING BREAK! I told him I would just put it on when I got home. He then put the wheel on the ground and walked away. I had to carry my wheel...in my suit...across the lot by myself. When I get home I wash the wheel and I can notice where the they bondowed it up. I'm really pissed now. I show up Tuesday morning and give the wheel back to Kevin. Kevin then told me he would call when it was ready.

It's now Thursday and I get no news. I call Barrier only to find out the Kevin is gone until Monday and they don't know anything about my BBS wheel!!! Oh...and did I mention there is a small dent on the front wheel well that I truly believe they put in when they had my car last Wednesday? These guys are absolutely horrible and I don't recommend them to anyone. When I get this whole thing straightened out what should I do about the dent and wheel? I know the wheel isn't going to match 100% and they will probably say they don't have anything to do with the dent since it's been a week since they had the car. ARRRGGGH!!! Any advice people? These guys at Barrier are nothing but a bunch of stupid condescending pricks. Any ideas on how to deal with them?

This really upsets me to hear this though. I was planning on going to Barrier for my 7500 service, since I recieved nothing but the best from them when I had my Porsche- but this is too much.
I scheduled a back-up appointment with University Audi (their office isn't anywhere near as pretty, but they were very nice and helpful) in the U-district (closer to where I live and work) and now I think that I may just use them!

I shopped at both, and bought at Barrier. If you check the archives, you'll find Barrier has a much better rep, and I found their sales staff to be more competent. I did deal with University's service department briefly, and was kind of alarmed to see it staffed mainly by teenagers.
Who knows, maybe they are talented teenagers, but still ...

HOWEVER, Barrier was way too busy for its own good. They never returned my calls. The salesman was always rushed and hurridly "squeezing me in" between other customers. I get the impression that they consider Audi and the A4 in particular to be their "low end" car, and focus a lot more effort on the Jaguar and Porsche customers.

Dan

and back it up. I would price out having the wheel fixed by a very reputable shop and the price of a new one. If you have to take them to court go for the price of a new one.

they are using a reputable shop to have it fixed, Queen City in Redmond. At this point I am more concerned about the small dent that is on my car. It's going to be really hard to prove they caused the damage. I am 100% certain that the damage did occur with them. My car was garaged the whole 4 days I was gone and it went straight into the garage after I picked it up. So it had to happen at their dealership.

They aren't like sorrority girls that way!

8^)

First off, let me say that I agree it sucks that they dinged you wheel(s), and they should repair or replace them so there is no visible difference. BUT! "ruined your car"??? Comon... Takes a whole lot more than scratching your wheels to ruin a car... If you confronted them with the "ruined your car" approach, I could see them just being overly defensive about it and not wanting to give you jack. But if you deal with them reasonably they probably would respond much better... Just my view.

Their service dept. usually calls 2 days after to check the service and that's where I blow all my steam.

Is the car as a whole "ruined"? Of course not. But a dent is a dent. And I shouldn't have to pay for their mistake.

I've only had a 7,500 mile service at Barrier (which was fine except oil level was low and tire pressures were put at MAX all the way around) I attempted to have them fix a rattle in the dash twice; both times they said it was done but nothing was fixed. I had the driver's mirror wind noise, which I told them how to fix (quite easy - take off mirror and place strip of insulating rubber between mount and window), but they said they couldn't attempt it and ordered me a brand new mirror. When it arrived, all that was new about it was that it came with a small rubber piece built into the mirror between the mount and the glass. duh. (I tried to save Audi some warranty $$, but nooooo). I enquired about the wet braking problem and they had never heard of it (even though everyone else on the planet knows about it). When I asked if they could install slotted disks and better brake shoes (to get rid of this severe safety problem), they freaked and said basically this would void the warranty of the car; "you mean the brakes"; "well yes and anything else it affects like wheels, suspension, brake lines, master cylinder, etc..." (oh and them not calling back when promised, not returning phone calls, yadda, yadda, yadda).

I won't even get into our conversations about installing an exhaust/chip/etc... Let's just say they object to anything being done to the car. Probably would freak if I got winter floot mats.

What will I do when I hit 15,000: I don't know. I keep reading the board looking for people with better experiences with either dealer....still looking.

One last note: I'm a 30-something cellphone carrying, pencil-pushing accountant with a nicely equiped 30V Quattro, not a 19-year old with a tricked out turbo (although I'd love one of those as well). I don't know why there's so much attitude there. I expect better service, not just from an Audi dealer, but in general from someone to whom I am bringing business. Perhaps it has a little to do with an old economics theory: geographic monopoly.

When you figure it out, please let ME know..

>I don't know why there's so much attitude there.
>I expect better service, not just from an Audi
>dealer, but in general from someone to whom I am
>bringing business. Perhaps it has a little to do
>with an old economics theory: geographic monopoly

Nope...I don't think that's it. I think it's probably because they have more business than they need.

Barrier is right in the middle of an extremely affluent area. There are tons of people with the money to buy Audi, Jaguar, Porche, BMW. Driving around 156th and 40th you'd think BMW outsold Honda!

If they insult you and lose your business, that's okay because they've got people lined up behind you with money in hand.

Bellevue BMW is just the same if not worse.

They're just maximizing profits by doing as little as they can to keep buisness at or near all they can handle and right now that means adequate customer service at best.

Why does Audi allow this to go on? Probably for the same reason, the cars are selling and as long as that's happening there's no problem.

you are so full of ****. staffed by teenagers? are you on an acid trip?

the only teenagers employed there are the gofers who go pull the car up from
the parking lot. and what do you have against that?

i've been going tho UVAS for 10 years and i take my porsche to barrier. happy with
both.. sometimes it's the jerk customers who get the bad service.. take a look in the mirror.

nt

Talk about Barrier sales...

No negotiation if I were to order a Y2K A4
from Barrier - this was made clear to me when
I went to Barrier 2 months ago to shop for our
A4. Pretty nasty, huh?

They wanted me to buy the A4 off their lot.
They were trying to sell me an Ebony A4 1.8
loaded with over 100mi for only a fraction
of discount off the MSRP.

Barrier is definitely SPOILED big time
by those who have a big budget for their
luxury car lineup.

Talk about Barrier service...

Tried to call the service dept. 3, 4, no,
5 times and always got transferred to either
NOBODY or an answering machine. Of course,
no calls were returned to me until, oh say,
one week later.

/Seb

I am very sorry to hear about your car. I took my 99 A4TQS in to barrier for a simple 7500 mile service and they screwed up. Left screws out of the undertray!!!!!!!!!!!. About Queen City. They are notorious for being extemely slow. Your wheel wil sit around their shop forever and then get butched to get it out the door because someone "forgot" about it. They suppossedly have a lifetime warranty on their work so take it back. If you would like more specifics on how to deal with Queen ****ty, e-mail me privately. Iknow how to get results with them.

I also wanted to test drive a 3-series for comparison before I bought my A4. They insisted on a $1000 deposit for a test drive. Yeah, right ... I wasn't going to let them hold my check hostage until I promised to buy a car.

Sometimes, I wish I lived in a more "normal" part of the country. Everyone here is right on: these guys are spoiled by the local economy.

Whenever the next recession hits, whatever I'm doing then ... I want to swing by Barrier/BMW Bellevue and see the desperation in their eyes. :)

Dan

You wrote "there is a small dent on the front wheel well that I truly believe", and I read it will a comma between wheel and well... I thought they dented your wheel. Denting your car sucks, that would piss me off too.