thank you everyone for your kind and helpful responses.. my next step is to change 17" or 18" wheels and new rims of cause.. during a year after I bought my A4 I have been relying on the local dealer.. I once went to indepent shop as the wipers went frozen when it was pauring raining, they charge me $1200 to change wiper mortor and transmission.. now the car has 55K+ miles (8K from me) I have to learn and try to fix myself.. Thanks again guys

 

Yeah, get some mechanical experience and knowledge, because your timing belt job is coming up and you do not want to go to the same dealer that charges 375 for vacuum hoses for your timing belt job.

 

if anything ever happens, just let us know, we will help you out as much as possible... We love to help people out, and its okay that you got ripped off, at least you learned something, I mean crap its better than some people that wouldnt have cared, at least you cared enough to take it in right away, and thats good in my book!! Now for starters to you do your own oil changes? If not we will start you off doing that. will save you a ton of money, thay you can put away in an account for major services and parts

 

I have not tried oil changing myself yet.. I was reading Jetsotne's oil change procedure for 2.0.. Please let me know the steps if you have it handy... Thanks again!!

Does anyone know any good shop in San Francisco handles Audi?

 

After investing over $500 into a car, fault codes would freak anyone out. That has nothing to do with this post. I was only stessing the point that dealers are going to rip you off if you dont know your stuff. I am hardly a noob, and I can admit that I dont know everything, but its hard not to make fun when you see a post like that. That "school girl" thing was really funny.. Funny because you are right. I felt EXACTLY like a school girl when I got chipped. Funny how you can identify that.

 

for future reference, if you are not mechanically inclined, find an independent foreign auto mechanic in your area. I found one who agreed to diagnose my problems for free(as long as I promised him my business) and then charged me an hourly rate for the actual replacing of the vacuum hoses.

 

I totally agree. I befriended my audi tech and he always cuts me deals. Sometimes he does work for me and i fix his computer problems and we call it even. Works out great.

 

1pt8, love your pm's, bitch.