Cerebral Gibberish

Took the car back to the dealer last Thursday to get the head light level sensor and a clamp on the bottom of the car replaced since they did not have the parts last week. They are also going to check out the new leak that popped up after I picked the car up last week.

When I got there and it turned out they did not order the retaining clamp but did have the head light level sensor so they were able to at least to that. The leak turned out to be to be a broken head light washer valve and not a coolant leak. They said that since this was a new problem they should have changed me my deductible again but said they would cover it this time. Granted if they did charge me my deductible again I would have bitched since I’m sure it was something that got broke when they took the front end of the car off to do the water pump. It looks like I’ll have to go to the dealer one more time to get that retaining clamp replace.. Joy!

Any ways, the dealer was getting their showroom ready for the unveiling of the new R8 road car later that day. The R8 road car was under covers on one side of the showroom so I could not take any pictures of it but they had a R8 Le Mans race car on the other side of the showroom so I took a few pictures of it. It’s an amazing looking car in person if I must say.

More Pictures

My Audi service representative called me yesterday morning to let me know that my car would be ready to pick up after 1pm. She gave me a quick run down on the status of all the service items in which most of my nit-picking items were either “Thats normal” or “Could not reproduce”. She reported that the tech that did the test drive said the wheel bearing noise I reported is actually just worn tires. I’m still skeptical but at this point the only way to prove it is to buy new tires which I need to do any ways.

After being stuck in another more or less useless meeting at work, I made it to the dealer just in time to pick up the car. Even though the water pump service was covered under warranty, the bill for the timing belt service, 60K service and labor not covered by the warranty ended up being a little over $969.91 ($557.29 Parts, $305.00 Labor, $70 Misc and $37.62 Taxes). After looking up the cost of the parts online, it looks the dealer has a 200% mark up on their parts. I could have bought all the parts online for ~$275. I guess next time I’ll plan ahead and bring all the parts for the service with me and just have them install them.

I guess the silver lining is that if I did not have the warranty, this service would have ended up costing me around ~$2,000 or more.

Now for the “Sort of” part. They did not have all the parts to fix a few of the smaller items so I will have to bring the car back to the dealer next Thursday. I should be able to wait for these items to be installed. Then again, I noticed a small puddle of what seems to be coolant under the front passenger side of the car at lunch time and again when I left work. I’m keeping my eye on it but if it continues, it looks like they will have to keep the car longer. If this happens I hope I get a newer A6 loaner.

I got up early this morning to get the car to the dealer to get worked on. I called Audi’s roadside assistance and got the tow truck rolling. They originally said it would be 1 – 1.5 hours for the truck to arrive but luckily it only took them 20 minutes to show up. The tow truck driver was really cool but I don’t remember his name off the top of my head. Delivering the car to the dealer was interesting as we lowered the car into a parking space. At the angle it was being let down from the flat bed it looked like my car was going to do a face plant right into the road but everything worked out just fine.

After that I went and talked with the service representative to go over the items to be worked on. I provided her with a list of small nit-picky items on top of the 60K service, noise / coolant leak, wheel bearing noise check items. I then signed the paper work, was handed the keys to the 2004 A4 loaner and headed to work.

On a side note, back when I was car shopping, the A4 was originally on my list but after looking and sitting in them decided to get the A6 for more room in the rear. Driving to lunch today in the loaner re-enforced the fact that I made the right decision since Justin’s legs were pretty much smashed into the back of the front passenger seat. I’m pretty sure no one could have sat behind me in the driver seat since I had it all the way back for my long legs.

Any ways, I got an update call from my service representative at 5:10pm telling me that the water pump was definitely the cause of the problems and since coolant got on the timing belt both the water pump and the timing belt would get replaced under warranty. I told her to go ahead and replace all the other items related to the timing belt service while they were in there so it looks like in the long run this minor inconvenience will pay off. They won’t be able to tell me about the wheel bearing and a few other things until they get all that replaced and do a road test. They estimated I would get the car back late Wednesday or Thursday. They quoted me an unofficial and most likely high estimate of $800 when everything is said and done. I estimated that the timing belt parts and the added labor to do the work not covered under warranty would be $400. I expect the wheel bearing to be around $200 so we are close to the $800 but I’ll have to wait and see.

Stay tuned..

Hehe.. So it turns out you can’t schedule Roadside Assistance ahead of time :P. Oh well, guess I’ll just wake up early on Monday and call them to come tow my car to the dealer.