xbrowne

I ordered my S6 in mid-September and it arrived in mid-December. I was incredibly excited to see my new car, but as I walked up to it I immediately knew something was wrong.

The headliner was a light gray color (which isn't even an option on the S6 cars).

Not surprisingly this is an incredibly expensive fix - >$10k due to the mirror, console, all the switches, etc. The dealer and Audi corporate split the cost to fix it and the car is now as it should be.

The question I have is whether I should ask for some kind of accommodation for the screw up or just leave it?

In the first 6 weeks I owned the car it spent 2 weeks in the shop. I've dealt with interiors before and they NEVER go back the same as factory, however, the techs seemed to have done a great job. There was quite a bit of clear coat scratching around the windshield, a, b and c pillars that they still need to polish out.

I was going to ask for them to throw in Audi Care on the car since they screwed up, but wondering whether I should bother. This dealership has always been great to me and we'll probably buy a Q7 from them shortly.

Anyone experienced anything like this? I certainly did not expect a custom ordered car to show up out of spec since I signed everything in triplicate.

It ended up being a checkbox in the ordering system that was just missed and no one thought to review/verify the order.

MikeS6

I guess first of all I'm trying to imagine how that would have looked? If it was kinda cool, I would have had them leave it as is, and hit them up for a discount. I mean I'm trying to understand was it the alacatera headliner in the wrong color? ($3000 option) and you wanted the black cloth headliner? ($0 option) We have to know the exact details.
I know one thing for sure, is mistakes in all industries happen with special orders all the time, sometimes it amazes me how people can focus on the fact that a mistake was made, and not consider taking the order as it is, with compensation/consideration ofc.


If you wanted a Black Alacantara headliner ($3000 or is it $3500? Can't rem atm) and you got a cloth light grey headliner, and you hate the look of it like 100%, them I would not have taken delivery of the car. Because you are correct for them to "fix" that, I'm not sure if I would be 100% happy with the thought of that, in every respect (quality of repair, long term adhesion, etc.)


You kind of lost all of your bargaining power already. But I guess at this point I'd want a nice "below invoice" price on that new Q7 for sure, which would be nice "gift" they could give you, because I have a feeling that they are in no way selling those near invoice price considering how new they are.


I don't know I would have them sell that car out on the lot, and had them reorder. That way it does not cost them anything, which it sounds like it has.

xbrowne

A few things:

1) I ordered the car in a custom color, so I didn't really want them to sell this one and order me another.

2) The gray headliner looked awful. It would have ruined the experience of owning the car for me.

3) The only options for headliner were Black cloth ($0) or Black Alcantara ($3000). They don't even offer the gray headliner on these cars supposedly. The top half of the interior was light gray while the entire rest of the interior was black/black leather with diamond stitching.

I already mentioned to them that I wanted some sort of accommodation before they replaced the headliner, but we just bought a house in December and with moving and everything I never followed up.

I actually do think I could get them to swing it since I already spoke with the sales rep about it and we're looking at buying another car, but maybe I'll just ask for a deeper discount on the Q7 like you mentioned.

Glisse

The Lunar Silver headliner is the standard factory installation on the S6, for all interior trims. Black headliner is a no cost option. The North American "packaged" S6 all have the black option "ticked" by AoA.

Because you ordered an Audi Exclusive paint option, it seems like AoA have to prepare a custom order for any Exclusive or Individual additions, and someone there forgot to change 6NJ (Lunar Silver cloth) to 6NQ (black cloth). Neither they nor the dealer (not sure how much the dealer gets to see in the US) seem to have picked this up. The factory in Neckarsulm just built what was on the sheet, and they almost never seem to get that wrong.

What would annoy me the most is that the dealer should have realised as soon as the car arrived that there was an issue. But instead they say nothing until you arrive to take delivery of your new car. Were they hoping you wouldn't notice?? Given they had to change the headlining, I might have asked them to put in black Alcantara as an offset, if you like that material.

But given your current situation, some special accommodation on the Q7 might provide the best result. The Nogaro blue looks great, BTW.

69Firebird400

Go for the deeper discount on the Q7. Congrats on the new S6!

libTTech

Correct the Lunar Silver is standard, I made sure to tell my salesperson 5 times that I wanted the black headliner. It does make a huge difference in my opinion. Some people actually feel the opposite with the non S cars, wondering if black headliners make the interior feel to dark, and maybe that's true. But for the S cars, the black headliner really gives the car the true sportscar look and feel it deserves.

JohnnyG0925

If the silver headliner is standard and the black option not selected, what was there for the dealer or AoA to "pick up"? And how was the dealer to realize the headliner was wrong if that was what was ordered? The OP seemed to be under the impression that black was the standard headliner so did not think it needed to be requested. This seems to be a communication issue and not n ordering/building mistake.

The fact that the dealer and AoA split the cost to "fix" it is rather generous. That said, they should have returned the vehicle with no scratches or other noticeable flaws. If they take care of all those issues in short oder, I'm not sure what other compensation would be expected.

Glisse

Not according to point 3 in the OP's second post.

However, if he got that wrong, then agree it has been generous of dealer/distributor to make the change.

xbrowne

Per Glisse's response it seems the Lunar Silver headliner is standard, however, I chose the black headliner on my build sheet and signed it 3 times.

It was the dealer's fault, however, I believe they ended up splitting the cost with AoA.

I didn't have to pay anything to have the headliner replaced and it was most definitely not my fault.