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I called Audi Customer care yesterday to keep some pressure on. I asked to speak with someone in "Customer Resolution and Retention", which is the department at Audi that are supposedly processing my request to refund or replace the vehicle. I was told that’s not a “customer facing” team so I would not be able to speak with that department. Funny that the team that has “customer” in the title can’t actually interface with customers. Whatever. So instead I asked to speak with an Audi customer care supervisor. I politely summarized my situation again and then asked if Audi could provide me with either of the following… 1) A timeline for when I can expect the repairs on the SQ5 to finally be completed successfully, or 2) A refund or replacement vehicle.
I think that’s reasonable, but Audi would not provide either of those.
Digging a little further into the current issues with the vehicle, the customer care supervisor indicated that they’re now trying to solve error codes related to the chain tensioner. I speculate it’s possible that this chain tensioner issue is just a new problem created when they replaced both cam adjusters and may not even fix the original problems, but who knows? The dealer is waiting on instructions from Audi on how to proceed next with the repair. Speaking of the actual problem, I am curious if any mechanics on the thread have any theories? My buddy who has worked on many different cars thinks Audi has been chasing an electrical issue this whole time. Who knows, but what are the odds a brand-new car would need 2 new cam adjusters?
Meantime, my case has already been filed with BBB Autoline (arbitration) and I’ve secured a lawyer who will be reaching out to Audi early next week since Audi hasn’t left me any choice here.
GC500, Here is a link to Magnuson Moss Warranty act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus...s_Warranty_Act If you get a lawyer make sure you get one that specializes in this law. You can google Magnuson Moss warranty lawyers and I am sure there is one in your area. They know how to deal with this law as I had to use an attorney for a BMW problem. No money out of pocket for you either. You have an extreme case and I would go for a full refund and damages and anything else you can get. It always has amazed me that when you buy a car and drive it off the lot the transaction is closed. 99% of the dealers will not assist you with a problem like you are having. There are exceptions. I had leased a Lexus RX350 5 years ago and after I took delivery I noticed that all the windows had spots inside the glass. Took the car to the service department and they had never seen anything like it. There were 2 possible resolutions, replace every window in the car or replace the vehicle. Service worked with the manager of sales and they replaced the vehicle with no questions asked. On top of that they gave me a vehicle with more options. That is the difference between Lexus and Audi. When I had the BMW nobody would stand behind the car and said fine we are going to court. From there we ended up settling before it went to trial. German carmakers simply will not stand behind their cars as you have just learned. They also have the worst depreciation aside from American built cars.
In the end one way or the other you need to get rid of the car you don't even have. After your experience and in your case I wouldn't want a replacement vehicle, especially the way that Audi has treated you. I would be looking at something else.
I received a short e-mail from Audi USA yesterday in response to my request for them to provide me a date when I can expect the engine to be successfully repaired and an answer to my request for refund or replacement. The e-mail in its entirety said: “We received notification that you had filed with the BBB. Please understand that your case will be closed on our end, and to please continue to work with the BBB. -Customer resolution and retention”.
Then Audi submitted the attached ‘Manufacturer response’ today to my BBB claim, summarized below:
1) Audi is requesting the opportunity to make arrangements for the vehicle to be inspected by an authorized Audi dealership. This is odd considering the vehicle has been at an authorized Audi dealership since Oct 22nd and Audi corporate has been involved in all the repair decisions to date.
2) “We are confident… the vehicle can be repaired as necessary to meet manufacture’s specifications”. 5+ weeks of failed repairs so far says otherwise.
3) “Decision sought: Audi requests release from repurchase / replacement liability”. Speaks for itself.
Audi wants to keep trying to repair the vehicle and in that regard it’s been a full week since the last repair and test drive were completed which resulted in the reappearance of the drive system malfunction and engine speed limitation errors. I think the dealer has been waiting on Audi for the entirety of the last week to provide guidance on next steps, which they finally received today. I was told by the dealer that they are next going to try replacing one the engine’s cylinder heads. They should be able to confirm tomorrow when the repair will begin (I assume there might be another wait for parts) and will also let me how long the repair is expected to take. There is no guaranty this will solve the problem either, as was the case with all the other failed repair attempts. It's an educated guess.
Keyes Audi’s service manager is the one bright spot here. He’s a really nice, sympathetic, guy and does a great job of keeping me up-to-date on the vehicle status even though I am sure he’s a very busy person. I really appreciate it.
I don't know the date yet for the arbitration hearing.
I received a short e-mail from Audi USA yesterday in response to my request for them to provide me a date when I can expect the engine to be successfully repaired and an answer to my request for refund or replacement. The e-mail in its entirety said: “We received notification that you had filed with the BBB. Please understand that your case will be closed on our end, and to please continue to work with the BBB. -Customer resolution and retention”.
Then Audi submitted the attached ‘Manufacturer response’ today to my BBB claim, summarized below:
1) Audi is requesting the opportunity to make arrangements for the vehicle to be inspected by an authorized Audi dealership. This is odd considering the vehicle has been at an authorized Audi dealership since Oct 22nd and Audi corporate has been involved in all the repair decisions to date.
2) “We are confident… the vehicle can be repaired as necessary to meet manufacture’s specifications”. 5+ weeks of failed repairs so far says otherwise.
3) “Decision sought: Audi requests release from repurchase / replacement liability”. Speaks for itself.
Audi wants to keep trying to repair the vehicle and in that regard it’s been a full week since the last repair and test drive were completed which resulted in the reappearance of the drive system malfunction and engine speed limitation errors. I think the dealer has been waiting on Audi for the entirety of the last week to provide guidance on next steps, which they finally received today. I was told by the dealer that they are next going to try replacing one the engine’s cylinder heads. They should be able to confirm tomorrow when the repair will begin (I assume there might be another wait for parts) and will also let me how long the repair is expected to take. There is no guaranty this will solve the problem either, as was the case with all the other failed repair attempts. It's an educated guess.
Keyes Audi’s service manager is the one bright spot here. He’s a really nice, sympathetic, guy and does a great job of keeping me up-to-date on the vehicle status even though I am sure he’s a very busy person. I really appreciate it.
I don't know the date yet for the arbitration hearing.
GC500,
The BBB will do nothing for you. I wouldn't bother calling Audi anymore as they obviously have no intention of replacing or fixing the car. In the end you have to make a decision and I am telling you that what I mentioned in my prior post is your best course of action. It also sounds like the lemon law now applies so why not pursue these avenues? One thing is for sure after I have seen how you are being treated I would never by an Audi. I was considering the Q5 but between this and an absolutely horrible experience with the sales department at Audi I won't purchase this brand. Trust me, the BBB will do nothing for you and honestly I have no idea why they are in existence. You can't wait on Audi any longer. I would go after them now with full force.
Last edited by floridaman100; 11-28-2018 at 03:06 AM.
The BBB will do nothing for you. I wouldn't bother calling Audi anymore as they obviously have no intention of replacing or fixing the car. In the end you have to make a decision and I am telling you that what I mentioned in my prior post is your best course of action. It also sounds like the lemon law now applies so why not pursue these avenues? One thing is for sure after I have seen how you are being treated I would never by an Audi. I was considering the Q5 but between this and an absolutely horrible experience with the sales department at Audi I won't purchase this brand. Trust me, the BBB will do nothing for you and honestly I have no idea why they are in existence. You can't wait on Audi any longer. I would go after them now with full force.
Agreed, I learned years ago that the BBB is a joke. They don't do anything more than send a letter and provide the company's answer.
This is a terrible situation but you'll find examples like this with every other manufacturer. My friend bought a BMW X5 and five years after buying it he was spending $$$ to fix stupid things that shouldn't have broken. The last straw was when his hood latches broke! How does that even happen? I bought my Q5 in July, have put 5,000 miles on it, and it's the best car I have owned. Something could happen in the future that will cause my opinion to change, but it's been trouble free since day one and I can't say enough good things about it.
The BBB will do nothing for you. I wouldn't bother calling Audi anymore as they obviously have no intention of replacing or fixing the car. In the end you have to make a decision and I am telling you that what I mentioned in my prior post is your best course of action. It also sounds like the lemon law now applies so why not pursue these avenues? One thing is for sure after I have seen how you are being treated I would never by an Audi. I was considering the Q5 but between this and an absolutely horrible experience with the sales department at Audi I won't purchase this brand. Trust me, the BBB will do nothing for you and honestly I have no idea why they are in existence. You can't wait on Audi any longer. I would go after them now with full force.
Thanks floridaman100. I appreciate all of the advice!
Agreed, I learned years ago that the BBB is a joke. They don't do anything more than send a letter and provide the company's answer.
This is a terrible situation but you'll find examples like this with every other manufacturer. My friend bought a BMW X5 and five years after buying it he was spending $$$ to fix stupid things that shouldn't have broken. The last straw was when his hood latches broke! How does that even happen? I bought my Q5 in July, have put 5,000 miles on it, and it's the best car I have owned. Something could happen in the future that will cause my opinion to change, but it's been trouble free since day one and I can't say enough good things about it.
Hopefully your Q5 won't develop any serious issues down the road, because if it does don't expect Audi to give a hoot. I've been an Audi customer since 2001 and they have treated me like dirt over a car I had in my possession for 2 days before it broke down.
I assume my bad engine is a rare occurrence, although that may not be clear until more time has passed. Even Audi doesn't seem to know what the heck is going on with it right now. To the extent that others have had similar engine issues with their 2018 Audi Q5/SQ5, I am sure only a tiny percentage come to this forum to vent their concerns.
I do wonder if Audi's initial quality is going down the toilet? I saw these articles about it before I leased the vehicle and maybe I should've paid more attention. Their Initial Quality was higher in 2016 which was the last Model Year Audi I had (which never had any problems outside of a crap ton of recalls).
Hopefully your Q5 won't develop any serious issues down the road, because if it does don't expect Audi to give a hoot. I've been an Audi customer since 2001 and they have treated me like dirt over a car I had in my possession for 2 days before it broke down.
I assume my bad engine is a rare occurrence, although that may not be clear until more time has passed. Even Audi doesn't seem to know what the heck is going on with it right now. To the extent that others have had similar engine issues with their 2018 Audi Q5/SQ5, I am sure only a tiny percentage come to this forum to vent their concerns.
I have complete empathy for you as I would be beside myself if this had happened (happens) to me. My previous three cars were all Nissan/Infiniti (1998 Maxima, 2006 G35x, 2012 G37x) and they never gave me any real trouble. In fact, my 2012 G37x was absolutely perfect for six years until I decided that I wanted something a little larger for the family (we have an almost three year old). Infiniti is lagging with their technology (e.g., no Apple CarPlay) so I bought the Q5 as I love the technology and could find no equal in the other brands, and Consumer Reports rated the Q5 one of the top in terms of reliability. It's really been a dream car for me, so I hope you get your situation resolved soon.
Last edited by tron1982x; 11-29-2018 at 04:00 PM.
Reason: minor
I don't agree that blasting people / shaming on a social media is always the best thing. Once you've blasted people, what's the incentive to help you? You've already trashed them. It can have the opposite effect. The BBB is worthless. Good luck on anybody caring about the BBB and that doing any good. I think that went out with Ralph Nader a long time ago.
This has happened to us all before to some extent. But I agree, it's hard to not get angry when a 65k car is in the shop for over a month. Sometimes going the legal route and asking for a buy-back is what needs to be done, and it's very hard to not lose your cool and be furious. You just have to go through the process. Some dealers will go beyond what they have to, trade you out of that car and get you another one.
I bought a new house in January and over 50% of my brand new sod died. After doing some research, seems like they let the sod sit out from for weeks in the middle of Jan. I had to pull it all up by hand and made videos of the junk grass, pulling off like a rotten banana. Talk about freaking furious. I was a full race car in the red, It took me over 3 months of back and forth with the builder, but I had to swallow my pride and have a strategy to win the war. I had given the builder all 10's on their surveys earlier, and chose not to write any reviews online or get overly emotional about things. A couple strong worded texts and emails here an there. You have to make people feel a little empathy for you. Needless to say, they eventually brought a whole truckload of new sod and a small bulldozer in, and red-sodded most of my loan. Even the builder said if I would have trashed him, he probably wouldn't have helped me. It takes a lot of patience, but I finally won the war.
I had nothing but good luck with most of my previous Audi's. I think there are some growing pains with the factory in Mexico, and this all new 2018 may have more issues that previous German Q5's from what I'm reading online. I wanted a slightly larger SUV and could not afford the Q7. I miss the handling and feel of the Audi, and hope to be back one day.
Last edited by jperryrocks; 12-02-2018 at 08:58 AM.
Yeah I think the BBB thing was a poor choice. They could've given you a trade assist and got you into a brand new 2019, same equipment, for approximately no additional cost. The head of service should work with AoA to work on Trade Assist, and coordinated with Sales Manager to get you one of the first allocations at a significant discount.
Yeah I think the BBB thing was a poor choice. They could've given you a trade assist and got you into a brand new 2019, same equipment, for approximately no additional cost. The head of service should work with AoA to work on Trade Assist, and coordinated with Sales Manager to get you one of the first allocations at a significant discount.
Yes, in an ideal world, Audi would offer to replace (or refund) the vehicle whether that’s via trade assist or some other mechanism – but they haven’t and neither my BBB filing or anything else is preventing them from doing that at any time. The vehicle is still not fixed after 42 days in the shop and counting, and sadly Audi hasn’t even attempted an additional repair since Nov 20th. In the absence of Audi being reasonable, that leaves arbitration and/or a lawsuit. I have consulted with an excellent lawyer and I do have a strategy. I am going to leave it at that until there’s a resolution, but I think it would be best to not judge one strategy over another until this has been resolved.
11-25-2018, 07:58 AM
