Ok, my car is only 4 weeks out and my Dealership is turning into a nightmare . . . . . *sigh*

 

why is it turning into a nightmare? I know I had my struggles with delays, but the boat just passed the panama canal, docks on sunday...finally, I did order it mid June.

 

The nightmare part is the saleman I am dealing with. I wanted to get some numbers on financing and also had a few questions, but he seemed to think it would be ok to not answer my Emails or retaurn my calls.

 

Just wait to see what happens if you approach AudiUSA Corporate, as I did. You, too, can have the CEO Johan deNysschen disavow all responsibility for Audi's widely-known reliability problems, and then personally berate you for expecting otherwise in (as a former Sr VP Sales for Toyota USA called it) "an unbelievably stupid letter."

See the entire correspondence between myself and AudiUSA at: https://www.audiforums.com/forum/s-c...1/#post1355472

 

After 6 months of waiting I finally got my S4 in the R8 exclusive color of sepang blue. For a while I wondered if it was worth the wait, well I can say now it definitely was. Even the dealer said its one of the most amazing looking s4 colors they've ever seen. I'm attaching some pictures for those interested.

 

I read through your thread and your problem and mine are worlds apart. I am dealing with an issue with my local dealership on the delivery of my new S4, you are dealing with an eleven year old car that crapped out on you. Although it sucks for your car to blow up on you like that, it was an older vehicle, with no warranty, I do wish you good luck. I on the other hand am still waiting on my car and the sales person was everything but a treat and I contacted the dealership owner.

 

Beautiful car man, congrats ! I used to have a 2002 Acura TL Type S back in the day with a simular color, have fun trying to keep it clean

 

You're absolutely correct, in that the problems are different and independent. However, they are both indicative if a corporate culture that drives, from the top-down, an attitude of "you're only the customer, and we're better than you are".

 

I have to admit, I am not used to the way these dealerships treat their customers, it was even worse at BMW, but that's a whole different story. I have been a customer at Acura for the past ten plus years and their customer service is second to none from my experience, Lexus is a close second. If Acura wouldn't have screwed their lineup up so bad, I would have never left.

 

Lexus was certainly top-notch from day one. Acura learned a valuable lesson when they did, well, what Audi's doing now -- failing to address common problems without getting sued. Acura's first couple production years of its Integra were marred with paint jobs that oxidized and peeled off, after about 5 years of ownership. Some morons on this forum will try to tell you "Nobody owns a car for five years!" or "You should have parked the car inside 24/7" or "It's out of warranty -- why are you complaining." Acura learned a valuable lesson when it failed to own up to common problems with its products, but it was expensive and time-consuming to regain customers' trust. The Audi CEO, Johan deNysschen is either too stupid, too shortsighted, or too combative to understand that CUSTOMERS ARE ALL YOU HAVE in the car business. And pissing off people who gave you $50k a few years back, and are offering to give you another $50k, is not the way to make a business thrive.

I've also experienced top-notch attention to service (especially when strange things happen -- which is when it really counts) with Mercedes-Benz. Example: I picked up a new SLK320 for European Delivery in Stuttgart. I brought along my own CD changer, since (for this model year) the changer was a "dealer-installed option". When trying to install the changer in the garage of my Sindlefengen hotel that night, I discovered that the radio wouldn't recognize the player. Because I had encountered the problem before, with a previous production year MBZ, I knew what the problem was -- that the fiberoptic connectors were reversed as they attached to the stereo's head unit in the dash. MBZ's factory is **NOT** set up to do repair work on customer's vehicles. But when I brought the vehicle back the next morning, they immediately (no hassle at all) made all the exceptions necessary to make things right. Good thing, too -- not only did they earn a great deal of goodwill, they made my next eight weeks in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece much more enjoyable, as I had brought many CDs to provide appropriate soundtracks. (FYI: the stereo in-dash does not have its own CD player).

Take note, Audi: THAT is how you treat a customer who just forked over $50k to buy your product.