lsc2g

both front doors are like this.. never been painted before or anything.

driver side i'm calling audi about the rust warranty

i think i'm calling audi tomorrow about the driver door.. its rusted through on one spot..here are some pics of the damage.. the passenger door is 80% better than this side. just small surface rust (easy to sand out and repaint)







the bad spot




and you can see the crack/hole through here

awdjunkies

WOW!!! That's something I've never seen them do before. Of course hopefully Audi will step up and help you, instead of asking where you live in regards to the type of climate the vehicle sees.

GTA_Driver

Go to your dealer, apply for warranty work. I had Audi of Canada replace 3 doors on my A6 just last week, and repaint both sides fully (fender to fender).

Take door panels off on all 4 doors and check inside. That's how I learned about my problem (when replacing broken window clip)

lsc2g

the rears are fine but i'm really wanting to check them now too

car is in alberta canada (and has always been here)

we don't use salt on our roads in winter because the temps get too cold and it doesn't work..

car gets washed weekly too.. its the wifes car but seriously what a pain

after seeing this now i've checked out lots of local cars a6,a8 and ARs in our downtown core and ALOT of them have small rust starting too! a buddys AR had it and i showed him and he was so mad too

once i get this fixed i'm probably going to have 3m put down under the blade area and up a little bit on the lower doors to help stop this again..

GTA_Driver

It's a combination of faulty design (notice how newer Audis don't have those door blades?), and a defective metal or treatment process.

Up until 2 weeks ago, we had a '93 Audi 100 in the family, and it didn't have any major rust in the doors or anywhere else. Some minor, but it was a 19 year old car.

My brother's 2001 A4 is holding out pretty well. But my A6 had the rust bite.

I was very thorough when buying my AR last December. Even the Phillips screws in the lower corner of the door are spotless.

While Audi will fix the problem, it's a pain. Make sure you go through a good dealer. Even more important, make sure you go to a VERY good body shop. The one I went to inToronto is amazing. Though they were not required to paint more than the doors, they put "feathering" as part of the quite to Audi, and got approved. Hence both sides repainted fully. They also put some silicone-like rubber, almost see through, at the bottom of the doors. They did a really professional job.

mendelo

Oddly enough, I too live in Alberta and both my front doors are like that (though not that extensive) yet the rest of the car is perfect.

I read once that the allroads when delivered had the door blades covered with a plastic film. Dealers would remove this file with an exacto blade. If they were not careful they would nick the paint. That left the raw steel exposed to the affects of aluminum and trapped water at the curve.

GTA_Driver

I don't know if I would put much trust in that, since I had it happed to A6, and you also need some extensive cuts to the steel (cut through clear coat, paint, then zinc, then touch the metal). And I am very doubtful it would cause such problems.

If you saw my A6, you'd know the problem began inside the door panels, where no knife would touch. The body shop I used does the doors of these Audis with blades frequently enough, they identified it a poor design choice. Moisture gets trapped there. Normally moisture would not cause problems on these zinc-coated cars, but combined with some defect in zinc treatment, or the paint process, and voila! That's why not all Audis rust at the door blades this soon (so it's not strictly a design flaw).

lsc2g

well i put a case in over phone/email with royal oak audi in calgary and i should expect a call tomorrow to bring the car in to show them

really i think it needs a new driver door for sure.. what a pain! 125k (Kms) on the car!!!

mendelo yea i have friends in my club with ARs and A6s with the same issue.. a local audi person told me he's seen A8s com in with it!! 100k car 2 years old with rust!!!!!

mendelo

I have owned a number of older Audis, a 5000, coupe, 80 quattro and A4 and while they have had their issues, rust was never one of them. In fact that was one of the reasons I like Audis, so finding this rust was a surprise.

I think the Audi corrosion warranty is 12 years, but that means actual penetration through the steel. Isc2q, in your case that would definitely be the case. I'm up in Edmonton, so will call Southgate Audi (our only dealer) to see if something will be done. At the moment the rust is flaky, but definitely no hole. However if the 12 year warranty holds true, the hole will be there in time so I need to persuade them it would be cheaper to fix this now rather than later.

lsc2g

yea I bought this from southgate 3.5 years ago because there were no 'good' Allroads in calgary region.

that being said i'm working with royal oak audi on it and bringing the car in thursday for inspection