My husband and I purchased a 2022 Audi RS GT E-tron and it has been a complete disaster.
From almost day 1 there were problems. It started off with the speakers in the door rattling, the dealership couldn’t replicate it so it went back and forth a number of times, until it was finally determined oops we need some insulation around the speakers to prevent them rattling around in the door like rocks in a tin can. Since then, it has been issue after issue; software failures, loss of power, and the latest is a malfunctioning spoiler that needs to be replaced, not to mention the damage to the car while it was at the dealership, requiring a third party autobody shop to repair. On 2 occasions the car lost power at high speed on the highway, we have 3 young children, for this to happen while driving is completely unacceptable. There have been 7 recalls on this vehicle, ranging from issues with the braking system to a risk of fire caused by the battery modules, some of which don’t have resolutions at the time of the recall, but the consequence of this failure could be catastrophic for the vehicle driver and occupants. Again we have a young family, why should we be risking our lives and our children's because of their poor engineering.
To date with all the recalls and issues this car, which was purchased brand new from Audi Downtown Vancouver, has spent 176 days and counting with in the Audi Downtown Vancouver service department. This car which is less then 3 years old has spent almost 6 months with the dealership for variety of repairs and recalls. A $278,000 luxury vehicle has spent almost 20% of it’s commissioned life in the service centre. The car is currently with Audi Downtown Vancouver for going on 2 weeks waiting for a faulty spoiler to be replaced.
Now to get to the really exciting part where Audi Canada and Audi Downtown Vancouver team up to be stand-up businesses taking care of their customers when clearly there is a significant issue with a vehicle they manufactured and sold.
Here are the options Audi Downtown Vancouver offered us, I’ve made some notes in red to really highlight how well they’ve treated us after selling us this ‘luxury’ vehicle:
Option #1
Current payout is $128,559
Current value is $83,000
Meaning you would have to pay the difference if I were to buy you out of the loan. Meaning we take your car and you still owe us $45,559 for this glorified paperweight
Option #2
Would be taking it in on trade and applying loyalty rate reductions and rolling the negative equity into the new vehicle and zeroing out the new vehicle to my cost. We sell you another hunk of junk and add $45,559 to the purchase price and you are in a never-ending spiral of debt for a shoddily engineered car.
Option #3
With some pictures of the car, I can run the vehicle on the auction and see if we can get more than the market value I have indicated above, then I can take that data to Audi and ask Audi Canada to help supplement the difference. That sounds like a great way to end up in even more debt, who’s going to buy a car at auction with multiple open recalls with no solution.
Option #4
Give the service department the opportunity to assess and fix the vehicle again Yes the never-ending fixes and recalls until the warranty runs out in a year and then we are really screwed and pumping even more money into this paperweight.
Thank you but no thank you, all these options are terrible, but at least the dealership told me they felt really bad about it and had never seen a vehicle with such a lengthy service history and so much time in the service department. It makes me feel so much better that they know how messed up this situation is, but aren’t going to do anything at all to fix it.
Audi Canada has also been lovely to deal with, this response pretty much sums up my dealings with them:
‘Our commitment under warranty is to cover repairs that are the result of a manufacturer's defect.’ Gee thanks let me just continue to make payments to Audi Canada while my car sits in the service department undrivable.
By my calculation we have made over $28,000 in payments to Audi Canada while this vehicle was sitting at the dealership and we were not able to drive it. Does that seem fair? Why should I be paying for a car I can’t drive and is in the possession of the dealership and manufacturer. We trusted the brand, we trusted that Audi was a quality manufacturer, we trusted that a vehicle that is being advertised in airports and cities all over from Miami to Warsaw and everywhere in between was a quality, well engineered luxury vehicle. Instead we have been duped into buying a worthless piece of scrap metal and Audi Canada and Audi Downtown Vancouver know it and aren’t willing to do a thing about it.
Anyone have an experience with this sort of thing or recommendations on how to deal with Audi Canada? I'm likely going to the situation to CAMVAP.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
My husband and I purchased a 2022 Audi RS GT E-tron and it has been a complete disaster.
From almost day 1 there were problems. It started off with the speakers in the door rattling, the dealership couldn’t replicate it so it went back and forth a number of times, until it was finally determined oops we need some insulation around the speakers to prevent them rattling around in the door like rocks in a tin can. Since then, it has been issue after issue; software failures, loss of power, and the latest is a malfunctioning spoiler that needs to be replaced, not to mention the damage to the car while it was at the dealership, requiring a third party autobody shop to repair. On 2 occasions the car lost power at high speed on the highway, we have 3 young children, for this to happen while driving is completely unacceptable. There have been 7 recalls on this vehicle, ranging from issues with the braking system to a risk of fire caused by the battery modules, some of which don’t have resolutions at the time of the recall, but the consequence of this failure could be catastrophic for the vehicle driver and occupants. Again we have a young family, why should we be risking our lives and our children's because of their poor engineering.
To date with all the recalls and issues this car, which was purchased brand new from Audi Downtown Vancouver, has spent 176 days and counting with in the Audi Downtown Vancouver service department. This car which is less then 3 years old has spent almost 6 months with the dealership for variety of repairs and recalls. A $278,000 luxury vehicle has spent almost 20% of it’s commissioned life in the service centre. The car is currently with Audi Downtown Vancouver for going on 2 weeks waiting for a faulty spoiler to be replaced.
Now to get to the really exciting part where Audi Canada and Audi Downtown Vancouver team up to be stand-up businesses taking care of their customers when clearly there is a significant issue with a vehicle they manufactured and sold.
Here are the options Audi Downtown Vancouver offered us, I’ve made some notes in red to really highlight how well they’ve treated us after selling us this ‘luxury’ vehicle:
Option #1
Current payout is $128,559
Current value is $83,000
Meaning you would have to pay the difference if I were to buy you out of the loan. Meaning we take your car and you still owe us $45,559 for this glorified paperweight
Option #2
Would be taking it in on trade and applying loyalty rate reductions and rolling the negative equity into the new vehicle and zeroing out the new vehicle to my cost. We sell you another hunk of junk and add $45,559 to the purchase price and you are in a never-ending spiral of debt for a shoddily engineered car.
Option #3
With some pictures of the car, I can run the vehicle on the auction and see if we can get more than the market value I have indicated above, then I can take that data to Audi and ask Audi Canada to help supplement the difference. That sounds like a great way to end up in even more debt, who’s going to buy a car at auction with multiple open recalls with no solution.
Option #4
Give the service department the opportunity to assess and fix the vehicle again Yes the never-ending fixes and recalls until the warranty runs out in a year and then we are really screwed and pumping even more money into this paperweight.
Thank you but no thank you, all these options are terrible, but at least the dealership told me they felt really bad about it and had never seen a vehicle with such a lengthy service history and so much time in the service department. It makes me feel so much better that they know how messed up this situation is, but aren’t going to do anything at all to fix it.
Audi Canada has also been lovely to deal with, this response pretty much sums up my dealings with them:
‘Our commitment under warranty is to cover repairs that are the result of a manufacturer's defect.’ Gee thanks let me just continue to make payments to Audi Canada while my car sits in the service department undrivable.
By my calculation we have made over $28,000 in payments to Audi Canada while this vehicle was sitting at the dealership and we were not able to drive it. Does that seem fair? Why should I be paying for a car I can’t drive and is in the possession of the dealership and manufacturer. We trusted the brand, we trusted that Audi was a quality manufacturer, we trusted that a vehicle that is being advertised in airports and cities all over from Miami to Warsaw and everywhere in between was a quality, well engineered luxury vehicle. Instead we have been duped into buying a worthless piece of scrap metal and Audi Canada and Audi Downtown Vancouver know it and aren’t willing to do a thing about it.
Anyone have an experience with this sort of thing or recommendations on how to deal with Audi Canada? I'm likely going to the situation to CAMVAP.
- k12w34, North Vancouver, BC, Canada