So I brought my car in about 4k miles ago for maintenance and the dealership tells me my battery is fine. Well it just died, and the Amps measuring the battery measured 68 ( I took it to the dealership because my fuel gauge stopped working after jumping the battery). This number should be close to 300! Not only this but also they wanted to charge me 250 dollars for a new OEM battery and kept trying to push it on me. They also told me the fuel sender was bad. I kindly deferred the offer and just went to Advance auto parts and got a battery for 70 bucks. With some time and new battery, all the gauges, key fobs, windows, started working again. Is an OEM battery worth close to 200 dollars more? Prob not. So for all of you who need a new battery, just get it from anywhere other than the dealership. My ranting is done.

 

K but knowing about the stealer's "tactics", why did you go there in the first place? I wouldnt expect anything less from them.

 

damn that's crazy

 

initially I went because it was still under warranty and had free maintenence. The 2nd time after my battery died because that was the only place that could see me that same day and I never disconnected the battery and didn't know about all those electronics restarting. When they stopped working after i jumped it again, I freaked out.

 

Gotcha... Sometimes having a waranty is more trouble than not having one... Especially if you own an Audi.

 

i have a warrenty through the dealership and i'm seeing them on tuesday for my CEL

hopefully i won't return with any horror stories

 

You will, and we wont be surprised to hear about it either [8D]

 

Now, now guys...

I've had pretty good luck at the dealerships, and I've also been around the block as far as other cars/dealer situations.
You need to be carefull about warranty-voiding services (If you're a tuner with an out-of-warranty car, all this talk of dealers is prettty much a moot point.), but price things out.

My car is under extended warranty, but needed two front tires. Of course I go to a tire store I trust instead of dealer. Same tires cheaper.
I'll do the same for brakes.

The good thing is that the dealers generally check and service a lot more things during regular services than the corner shop will do.

I'll get my services done at Audi but have a good independent do the heavy lifting (if price and work is substantially different)

 

Ive actually had a good experience at the dealership...a few months back my 04 B6's transmission was acting up(not going into reverse sometimes) so I went to the dealership dropped the car off and picked it up after they installed a brand new transmission control module...completely free!so i was pretty happy...but the dealership i go to is a pretty established Audi dealership,the collection in miami...they sell more than audi however...anyway Im going there again soon so they can fix my freaking sagging headliner.

 

Ihave an extended warranty not through audi but a warranty Company biggest PITA they have to call the company and then they cover a percentage of the labor and for parts im like are you klidding me and they only cover certain parts not worth the 2200 i paid for it.