Manning

So, there is this Porsche dealership in the area who I have had issues with in the past (no I don't have issues with everyone by the way) and I heard the other day that my sister and brother-in-law recently had trouble with them (again!).

Seems my brother-in-law took my sisters Audi TT into their service dept. for some maintenance. IIRC he was having the front end looked at and the brakes freshened. They get the car back and my sister gets on her merry way on down to Cinci for a tennis tournament. She told me that the brakes seemed kind of grabby but she dismissed it as new brake pads or something. She drives kind of fast and tends to tailgate though that is merely to set the stage for what could have happened, but didn't. She is hauling *** down the highway and at some point decides she needs to slow down quite a bit, I'm don't recall if it was to avoid hitting another car or to exit or whatever, just that she tried to slow down and the pedal went to the floor. Nothing. So by some miracle she has the presence of mind to pump the pedal and finally gets the car to stop. A friend was following her down to Cinci and stops and picks her up. She leaves the car and call my brother-in-law who arranges to have the car brought back up to the dealership's service dept.

Ready?

They get the car and pull off the front wheels and find one of the brake calipers has flipped up off the rotor. Whoever had serviced the car had left off at least one bolt for the caliper and it had moved off of the rotor. The reason the pedal had sunk to the floor when that happened was that she had to pump enough fluid to push the piston out of the caliper until the pads squeezed together. The flopping caliper trashed that wheel and the Goodyear F1 GS-D3. So, they replace that one wheel and one tire. So now she has three tires that are equally worn and one brand spanking new one.

I have yet to hear what will come of this. I am not one for law suites, but this dealership just pisses me off. I had stopped taking my car to them for service a while back when they blew off working on or even quoting the work on my car for 5 days (timing belt and water pump change, how ****ing hard can that be to quote) while it sat in their lot. I have since found out they had stated to a co-worker who bought a car from them that folks who bring their cars in for service and didn't buy the car from them are low priority. Now they will never see any of my business ever again.

89magic98

I don't understand the "you didn't buy the car from us, so you are entitled to bad treatment" rationale.

Americans are pretty mobile. Maybe I bought my car in one city, and then had to move to another city. Is it my fault that I didn't think ahead that I am moving when I made my car purchase?

I had no problem getting the Mercedes I bought in LA serviced in Escondido.

89magic98

There is the famous sales guy in the Porsche dealership in San Diego who asked a friend of mine "if he had the means" to buy a Porsche, when he rolled up in a Ford Explorer. Apparenyly he does this to everyone.

So, he took his business to Carlsbad, CA, and bought his 996 Twin Turbo there.

DOH!

Manning

Yeah, that drives me nuts. What makes it even worse is that my family has purchased or leased 2 new cars and 1 used car from them. The fact that my Porsche was not purchased from them shouldn't mean that much. And prior to the 5 days in the service lot untouched episode I had spent THOUSANDS of dollars with them on other service. I mean in a way I can see where new car buyers should have some priority, but not 5 days worth. What's worse is when they finally called and gave me the quote, they said it would be another two weeks before they could get to it because their water cooled expert was out of town. This is a service department that has something like 16 service bays and works on Porsches and Audis new and old and they only have one water cooled expert? WTF?

Manning

Oh, and I had purchased my car from a guy who had the PPI done by them AND always had them prep his other cars for club races.

89magic98

Mechanics are entitled to refer to themselves as "experts" _after_ they have worked on my car.

Most "experts" I have encountered have f-cked up my car in one way or another.

Tom R.

The local Caddy-Olds dealer got the Aurora delivered to them Wednesday morning. Didnt look at it till Friday afternoon. Changed the power steering pump monday. Total time charged to GM for warrantee work 1.5 hours. GM paid for FIVE days of a rental car.

Who did the dealer screw? I didn't buy the car from them because they were asses, won't buy one from them because they are asses, and GM gets stuck with a crazy rental bill.

A week later a sensor in the steering column for the stability control went. I called Monday and dropped it off Tuesday night at a Buick-Pontiac dealer. They apologized to me Wednesday afternoon, things came up. Picked the car up Thursday after work, and spoke to the salesman (same guy that sold us the Aurora) about a GTO.

The Olds dealer where we bought the car morphed into the Buick-Pontiac dealer. Glad I bought from them two years ago, and you can guess which dealer will get my business in the future.

ErichCS

Glad to hear your sister is ok. I've always wondered how much responsibility lies with the dealer in this type of situation, let us know if anything comes of it...

-Erich

83na944

Michael,

I'm glad your sister wasn't hurt. She shuld be furious at the dealership for endangering her life.

I don't see how anyone could screw up such a simple task that is so important. Especially not a mechanic at a dealership. This is just plain carelessness.

Your sister should report this to Audi. They probably can't do anything to help this situation, since they replaced the wheel and tire. But if the get enough complaints they'll realize that they need to find someone else to sell their cars.

Rock

Damn thats scary. Glad she made it. Youre making the me hate the dealers even more.

BTW- Was the tennis tournament in Mason? If so you were right by my house. Like within 2-3 minutes.