Hi,

I purchased an Audi A5 2.0T Quattro 58 reg car on the 13th June 2013 at £13,800 from a dealer and i reported that the car was using excessive oil on the 18th June.

Dealer asked me to bring the car on the 21st June for a repair, but he was unable to find the cause of the issue. Dealer asked me to leave the car on the 8th July for further diagnostics. They then told me that they will need to book the car in with Audi for a repair.

I requested for a full refund on the 18th July and Director from dealer responded, informing me that he had the right to repair the fault. I made it clear to him that I not agreeing to any repair but wanted him to find be able to establish the cause of the fault.

Car went to Audi and they diagnosis was that the car was using 5 times more than the tolerated level of oil and recommended that the piston and piston rings need changing. Dealer took the car on the 29th August from Audi after the test, I chased the dealer several times by phone to request for their action plan and time for resolution. They then replied on the 11th September that the car is in the process of repair and explained that there is a batch of 2.0T engines that have signs of excessive oil consumption and the piston rings are at fault and the reason why he went to Audi is to get goodwill assistance. I explained that at this stage I would like to personally go to Audi and ask them to consider the goodwill and that I would rather Audi carry out the repair. I told the dealer that I never asked him to start the repair on the vehicle as I needed to consider all my options. At this point, I refused to take the car as I was still looking for a full refund or a replacement car. The dealer stated if i want them to stop the work i will have to take the car back and threatened to charge me £20/day if I don’t take the vehicle from his premises and explicitly stated that he would not be liable for damage to the car which he threatened would be parked on the street outside the dealership. I had no choice than to take the car, but I kept in the garage and did not use it. I had to make alternative arrangement for my transport, at my own cost.

I contacted Audi headoffice personally and explained the situation and they agreed for a goodwill assistance of 70% on the parts only. This was still quite high as they the labour charges are considerable for this kind of job. I went back to the dealer and requested him to pay for the on the repair at Audi. The dealer responded that he was fully capable of carrying out the repair in house. He then said that if he will be carrying the repair I will have to pay for his time earlier when he started the repair (without my consent) which will be £1200 plus VAT. This amount was not justifiable as when he took the car he never had my permission to carry out any repair nor did he confirm the terms and conditions of that repair.
Dealer still insists that this is not a fault and he is only improving the oil consumption and that it is not his responsibility to repair the car. After approximately every 250mile, I need to refill oil which clearly means that the car was defective.

I went through the bank claiming, under Section 75 of the consumer credit act, but the bank has not been very helpful as they said there is no clear breach of contract. I renegotiated with the dealer to bring down the cost of the charges down to £1000 inc VAT and notified him that I will try to get the bank to pay for those charges. On the 28th Feb I requested a convenient date from the dealer and requested for a courtesy car for the period of repair. He replied to my request and agreed for me to bring the car on the 15th March.

On Friday 14th March (a day before I was due to drop the car of at the dealer), I sent an email confirming that I will be dropping the car and if a courtesy car will be available as the duration of the repair was estimated roughly 2 weeks. Dealer replied and said that he will not provide any loan car for me as he was under his impression that I was not using the car. I responded that originally, when I had put in a claim for the full refund, I had not used the car, however, once it became apparent that no refund would be possible and that a repair would be carried out, I began using the car, in February 2014 – this was to reduce my costs incurred by making alternate transport arrangements. This revelation made it impossible for me to source additional transport for the two week repair, at such short notice. I therefore had to postpone the repair as I am unable to get to my place of business without a car. I requested a next available date for the repair, to which he proposed a date for the 14th April and that I will need to make my own arrangement for alternative travel. I contacted the bank and they said they cannot do anything and they are not legally trained and there is not a clear breach of contract.

At this stage I feel that I am the only one seriously inconvenienced. Both the dealer and the bank says that there is no fault in the car and that it is driveable, I am not sure how this is normal that every 250miles I have to put a litre of oil. I feel that my consumer rights have been breached and are not being protected and both the bank and dealer are taking advantage of the situation.

I am at a standstill and this has been going for 10 months. I am unable to use the car properly; it has been very stressful and caused me a lot of inconvenience. I am extremely disappointed that I have paid such a considerable sum of money from a so called reputable dealer, only to be messed around and inconvenienced as I have been.

Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Hrishi

 

you need to go to the dealer and explain to them that there is a TSB involved nd Audi warrants the necessary repairs. they must complete stage 1 repair which is a pcv system update, ecm update, and they measure the oil in the pan. you must then take the car and drive DO NOT ADD OIL WHEN THE MIN OIL LIGHT COMES ON, call the dealer and tell them the light is on. you then drop the car off

the second stage is piston and ring replacement which is covered by audi as well if it fails stage 1 and still consumes oil

 

Thanks for the response, the 2 stages have already been done. The independent dealer where i purchased the car from requested me to bring the car to Audi for the 2nd staged test. Audi came back and recommended as per bulletin for the piston and piston rings to be changed. Audi Camberley are not willing to do the repair as the last service was not done at an Audi approved garage. They quoted me £5,400 for the repair, i argued with the Audi Headoffice and they agreed to give me 70% off the parts only which is still a considerable amount £4,000.
Fontain motors ltd suggested that they will do the work but they will not give me any details on the work they will carry out, apparently they will change only the rings. They claim to say that it is not fault and they will only improve the oil consumption to cover themselves from the breach of contract under sales of goods act 1979.
They are now requesting £1000 towards the "improvement" for the time they spent investigating this issue back in december where apparently they had to take the engine out. Furthermore they will not be providing me an alternative means of transport during the time of repair.
I have been struggling with the past 10months trying to get this resolved, i failed to understand how Fontain motors Ltd denies that it is a fault / defect and had i known about this issue i would have never purchased the car.