Audi Service on Wednesday

[stua4]

Hi all,
I thought i would post this, not sure if anyone is interested, same old i guess. Went in for an Audi service on wednesday, my first one. Dropped the car off and got a call a few hours later, the following was 'wrong' on my 2001 B6 A4 2.0 sport;
Glove box damper
Brake fluid change
Front brakes binding
rear anti roll bar collars
rear brake pads worn
cambelt
temperature sensor
coolant housing
plugs and filter

All this sir for a snip at 1500 pounds! Quick call to GSF and all parts (excluding glove box and fluid) come to just over £150 or there abouts.
Thats an awful lot of labour!!

[skymaster]

Yep!

Welcome to the modern day main dealer 'up sell' sales techniques! They have targets for this sort of thing. Dont spit on me too hard but I used to do this job and sell this to customers! I would advise getting the service done, get the stamp in the book then take it to a specialist or independant for the other work.

Ask them just how much the brakes are worn. They should give you a percentage. The last place I worked did try to sell brakes from a wear rating of anything from 60% meaning they would change pads (and discs of course) just after half of their useful life was up!!!

Where I worked some techs would report bushes as being worn when they had the tiniest amount of play in them. Often years of life left but still technically worn albeit maybe just 10% of their wearing life. People would then pay for them to be changed!

[jak]

What's the story with gove box. Can new damper be fitted or is a new glove box the answer. Noticed mine's started dropping like a stone.(2002 a4 sport 130)

[stua4]

New dampner and fitting £80 odd pound i think. I never even noticed mine was fast till i was in the hire car.

[jak]

Thats great news. It can stay the way it is unless it's covered by warranty.
Thanks
jak

[tony_anon]

Total rip-off! I got an Audi long-life service done in December (2nd one at 40K) and it was about £325 in total. Plus they wanted to change the brake fluid for £80. I would've thought that was part of the service!!
i.e. they charge £90 an hr.

Today I was looking at my headlights after removing the air duct on the drivers side and noticed that the air filter was black!! I dont think they ever changed it. Surely this is part of the long life service?! Will double-check with service manual. If it is part of the long-life service, then its straight to the dealer and possible official complaint to audi. They never give you a breakdown of the work they've done, just the total cost.

I would probably go along with skymaster if they proved what they had done during the service and get the book stamped.

[skymaster]

Yea, thats why the labour is so high. Cos with the dreaded VAT each hour can set you back £100 or more. I dont think doctors get paid that do they?

In the quest for profit if they sell you 8 hours work (breaks, cambelt, brake fluid, glove box damper, etc etc) but then the mechanic is then pressured into getting that 8 hours work done in 4 hours! Thats how his bonus is calculated! If he is 100% efficient it means he does 8 hours work in 8 hours. 200% EFFICIENT means doing 8 hours work in just 4.

The crunch comes when they lose lots of time on a job. Say they spend half an hour waiting for the break fluid machine to be free, another 15 mins at the parts desk. Then 2 hours the day before scratching their head with an engine warning light thats a warranty job so they get very little time booked for it. They need to make up that time to become 100% efficient again. So they way they do that is to sell a load of hours and do it at whiz speed.

At some garages they can face theboot if their efficiency drops below a certain amount (80%) or so.

So the thought that during the service they check every thing perfectly, take their time to make a perfect job of it is just not true.

The victims are the customer at one end and the mechanic at the other.