Have to get 2 new keys "setup" to work with my car (immobilizer I believe)...

[TonyDetroit]

...will the dealer charge me for this? What should I expect to pay (reasonably)? Thank you.

[1heartaudiworld]

probably about an hour.

[TonyDetroit]

[1heartaudiworld]

if your keys went bad or similar then yes it would be covered.. but just because you want to add some keys doesn't mean they should work for free.. do you work for free?

[TonyDetroit]

...costs that we incur/cover as a service to our customers.

I purchased the new keys, and all I wish to do is have the immobilizer confirgured for my car.

I'm not sure I'm asking for too much here.

[Vier Glühende Ringe]

[1heartaudiworld]

should they do oil changes for free out of warranty. should they mount and blance tires.

When its time for a timing belt should they do that for free or any other work you may need?

Its labor, they are going to have to pay a technician to do the job.. why should it be free.

you do realize that one of the reasons they dropped the Audi advantage program was not just because of money but because they realized they were breeding customers who expected everything forever for free.

[bhvrdr]

for basically a group of people who type in customer complaints and any DTCs and wait for the audi tech line to tell them what to do, they would cry. Recoding a key takes less than 5 minutes and any private shop would do something like that in order to attract a customer base. I certainly would.

Audis free maintenance program was a joke. It basically doubled the oil oil change intervals they used to specify and then two years after they institute the long life 10K mile "free" changes audi comes out with the oil sludge letter. Funny you saw almost no oil sludge reports on the B5 board when people were doing 3K mile changes on non synthetic oil. Then Audi is kind enough to charge upwards of $250 to $650 for what amounts to an oil change for their 55K miles service.

[Vier Glühende Ringe]

"LOL, audi complaining about cusomers is rediculous. If people knew they were spending $110 hour....for basically a group of people who type in customer complaints and any DTCs and wait for the audi tech line to tell them what to do, they would cry. Recoding a key takes less than 5 minutes and any private shop would do something like that in order to attract a customer base. I certainly would."
If you think that these cars fix themselves then you are sadly mistaken. The person typing in customer complaints is just getting on paper or in the computer for a highly skilled and factory trained technician to diagnose the car. Techline is made fun of by technicians because they are not helpful at all. You have to be there with the car to truly diagnose something. Recoding a key takes at least 15min with your car in your bay because you have to get a scan tool, hook it up to the internet, logon, allow communication between the car and scan tool and Germany to intiate and then adapt keys. You cant do this at any other place than the dealership because it is important for new keys to not be readily available to anyone. They have to enter in the owner of the vehicle and make sure that the person getting keys for this car owns the car. Please refrain from making misinformed comments from now on.

[bhvrdr]

if it sometimes takes up to 15 so be it but it took us 5 minutes to do with the 5051 in Lexington. If you think $60 is fair for 5 to $15 minutes worth of work by any idiot that can follow directions on a 5051 then you should work for Audi.

As for the technicians, give me a break. They follow a DTC sheet that tells them what to do when they see X occur. Try calling up a dealership and requesting information that isnt spit out to them. I dont know how many times i've had to bring my car in three times or more to finally get the correct repair "authorized" meanwhile the tech sat there telling me, "Look man I know it's the starter, you know it's the starter, but Audi wont authorize us to replace the starter yet. We have to replace the ignition first and then to a clean of the contacts and ground, and then...blah blah blah." Heck, try even calling up your local dealer and ask them what kind of oil you can put in your car. A guy posted that just a bit ago and got three different answers. Sorry, but in the three different dealerships i've had extensive experience with and one of them I brokered deals for and am good friends with the tech (who was an *** to customers) I would never ever trust my car with them outside of warranty. I remember calling one to see if they wanted to install a snub mount that takes literally 20 minutes to install if you are retarded and they wanted $450. I was quoted $800 by the dealership to swap out the rotors, calipers, and pads which takes 1 hour. Rediculous.

BTW, were you aware the dealership techs are not even given training or techncial authorization to do real-time datalogging anymore? We are technically able to do more troubleshooting with real-time datalogging on our vag-com then the dealership can. Call your local dealership and ask them what good and bad MAF g/s values are for a 1.8t engine, for a 2.0t engine. They will have no idea. Only that the DTC code for a finally dead MAF means they should replace it.