Westwood

Hi, I have an interesting question and wonder if anyone has dealt with this. My son has a 2006 Audi A4 with 105,000 miles - recently his check engine light came on, I have a general OBDII reader and ran a lookup on it, it came up as a mis-fire on cylinder #1. I cleared the code and he drove for about 2 more weeks before it came up again. I suggested that he take it to a Local VW dealer which is close to his college. He took the Audi there and they did a diag check o it and came up with 2 items - The first was some sort of Cam sensor, the second was the high pressure fuel pump, They recommended we take it to the local Audi dealer because there is some sort of warranty for the cam sensor - they would need to run his Vin # to verify. He called the Audi delaer and they verified that the sensor was covered by warranty but the fuel pump was not, so he made an appointment to have the work done. Upon dropping the car off, the Audi dealer called him and told him that he needs spark plugs and a new air filter (Of course he never called me to tell me what they said). at the end of the day he picked up the car with a $275 bill for 4 spark plugs, the diagnostic charge, and the air filter. I was livid when he told me how much he had paid, I called the dealer to question what happened to the cam sensor and fuel pump etc.... they said that they never pulled those codes, the only codes were for the spark plugs etc. I then called the VW dealer back and questioned them why the Audi dealer didn't have the same codes and that I just paid $275 for spark plugs etc. The answer I was given was that "Audi within the past 2 years has restricted VW dealers from accessing various information to diagnose Audi problems in order to force customers to take their Audi's to an actaul Audi Dealer" they stated that they do not have the ability anymore to get the actual Error codes. That seems far fetched to me, I am no expert , bit have been reading on the forums a bit about a VAGcom unit. Just surious if anyone has had the same type of situations, I am a pretty good mechanic and was wondering how dificult the spark plugs are to get to on an A4. Just trying to teach my son about the value of doing things yourself if you can. Thanks in advance for any info. sorry about writing a book ;-)

Kris Hansen

That's bs. Both use the same diagnostic tool. Many Audi dealers are ALSO VW dealers, imagine the dilemma and expense for them if that were true. =)