I just took my wife's car to Rockville Porsche-Audi (Washington, DC area) for the initial 5K service job. I had some concern, since it's got an Autothority-reprogrammed ECU, and discussion on this board indicated that Rockville P/A is adamantly anti-chip.

The bottom line--a very pleasant service experience! The service advisor went over the ticket with me at the end, and along with an oil change and tire rotation, he mentioned that they checked out my ECU to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning. But he made no mention of the non-stock program, and it's clear from the car's performance that they didn't reprogram it back to stock.

When I called for my appointment (they are not booked up very far in advance, in marked contrast to Heishman), the service advisor advised me to buy my own Mobil 1, since it's a lot cheaper at Costco or Trak Auto than at the dealership. Good helpful advice!

They did the service while I waited, it only took an hour, andthey topped it off with a free hand-wash.

Overall, absolutely no complaints. A very pleasant surprise--not what I'd expected from the negative comments I've read about that dealership.

Is there any cost for normal maintenance during the warranty period?
Did you upgrade any other components thru Autothority?

nt

Someone did a dealer survey about dealers in the dc/va area...rockville was quoted as saying that they did'nt back up chips but it's your car....they couldn't really care what you do with it as long as it dosen't result in some sort of engine or related problem...My car was bought and registered in NJ but I have been going to rv for service...it has the neuspeed ecu and neuspeed race springs/bilsteins and they didn't say anything when I came in for my 5 and 10 K service. I certainly won't be taking it there if I ever have problems with my turbo though....
alex
99.5 1.8Tqm

I was at rockville p/a last week trying to decide if i could afford an s4 when my current 97 a4 lease ends. I don't think I can, so we (me and salesman) were discussing my options. I mentioned chipping my car or even a new 1.8 or 2.8. I asked him if that would void the warranty and he said no. He actually said there was a recent newspaper article mentioning how car dealerships were voiding warranty's on cars with chips with unrelated problems(specifically vw's and audi's with the 1.8 engine). These dealers would void the warranty regardless of what the problem was. For instance, if there was a problem with the brakes and you had a chip, they would refuse warranty service. The newspaper article cited a court ruling in which the verdict ruled in favor of the plantiffs. The dealer would have to perform the maintenance under warranty as long as the problem was not related to the new ecu. Has anybody read this article, i'd like to check it out, as i'm sure most of you would too. Anyway, the conversation with the salesman continued. The rest of what he had to say, was that audi service employees are not the audi police. They get paid for the work they do, under warranty or not. Do you think they do warranty work for free, not! Audi pays them for all the work under warranty. These service guys want their fair pay and they're not going to rat you out because you've modified your chip.
On the other hand, I spoke to some other salespeople at the same dealership and they stated chipping would void warranty. I guess it depends on who you talk to, but in the end the only thing that matters is if the work gets done by the service guys. Having that article and citing the court ruling could do all of us a lot of good.