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Car Forum / Audi Cars / July 2005Certified Pre-Owned Useless
I bought an '02 S4 Certified Pre-Owned from Stevens Creek Audi (Bethel Motors) in the SF Bay Area a couple years ago. The warranty, albeit with deductible, and road side assistance to 100k miles was an attractive feature. I finally had to use the road side assistance, and Audi NA "customer care", and have found it useless! I had a flat tire in SoCal and tried to install the compact spare which came with the car. Problem was the spare was 4-lug and didn't even fit over the S4's front brake calipers to mate with the 5-lug rotor. Called for road side assistance...no help after 1 1/2 hours and I had to leave my car for another ride. After getting my flat fixed I called Audi NA "customer care" about the spare, and after 3 follow-up calls regarding my assigned case number I have not had a call back in 3 weeks! So still no spare tire. Useless I say! >"customer care", and have found it useless! I had a flat tire in SoCal and >tried to install the compact spare which came with the car. Problem was the >spare was 4-lug and didn't even fit over the S4's front brake calipers to >mate with the 5-lug rotor. Ouch. That's bad. So there is a wrong spare wheel in your car? Strange. >Called for road side assistance...no help after 1 >1/2 hours and I had to leave my car for another ride. After getting my flat >fixed I called Audi NA "customer care" about the spare, and after 3 >follow-up calls regarding my assigned case number I have not had a call back >in 3 weeks! So still no spare tire. Useless I say! Well, honestly I think it's a shame that they didn't help you when you needed road side assistance, but legally I think your case lies with the Audi Dealer that sold you a car with a clearly wrong spare wheel. In those couple years, you never ever took a look at the spare wheel? Regards Wolfgang Wolfgang, I'm embarrassed to say I routinely checked and adjusted air pressure in the spare, and unloaded / loaded it when driving in my three ACNA/BMWCCA "Performance Driving School" weekends. It never occurred to me that the bolt pattern could be wrong for the car! I'll have to stop rushing to get on the track and actually look at my equipment closer! - Lorne >>"customer care", and have found it useless! I had a flat tire in SoCal and >>tried to install the compact spare which came with the car. Problem was [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Wolfgang Lorne, Not that I'd blame you, but could you/someone else accidentally taken the wrong spare tire when you had it out during the School? IME, there's a lot of "ugly steel spares" being tossed around in prep for those events. Odds are that there's a driving school student driving around with a 5-hole S4 spare in the trunk of their 4-lug car. Cheers! Steve Sears 1987 Audi 5kTQ 1980 Audi 5k 1962 and '64 Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes (SPAM Blocker NOTE: Remove SHOES to reply) > Wolfgang, > I'm embarrassed to say I routinely checked and adjusted air pressure in the [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > > > Wolfgang Steve, Turns out the '02 S4 sold in the USA was equipped with a full size spare. I only learned this today after contact from the dealer (at long last). They admitted the full size spare must have been removed for another car, and replaced with the new INCORRECT compact spare. ~ Lorne '02 S4 (H&R coil overs, Neuspeed rear anti-sway, Ronal LZ's, Reiger aero) '99 528iT (Dinan S1, BBS RK's, Wilwood 4 piston calipers) > Lorne, > Not that I'd blame you, but could you/someone else accidentally taken the [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] >> > >> > Wolfgang Lorne, Did they also say, "OOPS!" and "sorry"? They should have..... Cheers! Steve Sears 1987 Audi 5kTQ 1980 Audi 5k 1962 and '64 Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes > Steve, > Turns out the '02 S4 sold in the USA was equipped with a full size spare. I [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > >> > > >> > Wolfgang I bought a CPO 2001 A6 2.7T with the sport package about 6 months ago. I noticed the spare was not a real wheel, but a "donut." The dealer told me the sport package cars did not come with full size spares because the large rim does not fit in the space for the spare. This weekend I got a flat and put the donut on. Then I noticed the full-size tire fits in the spare space. Was the dealer's story a lie? Anybody know whether my car was originally equipped with a full-size rim & tire? > Lorne, > Did they also say, "OOPS!" and "sorry"? [quoted text clipped - 83 lines] >> >> > >> >> > Wolfgang MDC, You'd be well-advised to ask on the A6 forum on Audiworld, there'd be more folks there with similar cars - I'd venture to say that it would be "originally equipped" with whatever was in the trunk, since it makes no sense to ship the cars from Germany (/Hungary/?) with nothing in the place of the spare, and then ship a container-full of spare tires. Of course, this does not apply to Lorne's case, unless the wrong tire was put in at the factory (hey, it happens, I've seen such a mixup at a different manufacturer => rear axles placed on one truck forward in the line for half of a shift, error noticed when wheel bolt pattern did not match). The story you were given about the reasoning for the donut does not ring true (obviously, if the fs tire fits....) - it's more likely that, given the number of different wheel options the buyer is given, it makes more $en$e to put a generic spare in there, where all they'd have to do is match the bolt pattern. It's nice to have a FS spare (mostly because you can drive as normal to the repair centre), but most of the time people forget to keep it inflated, and it's flat when they need it a few years down the road. Quattro and many AWD systems don't really take kindly to throwing an untravelled spare tire into tire rotations, not to mention directional tread patterns (this is my left side spare, that's my right side spare?). Some manufacturers are deleting the spare tire altogether, opting for a "spare-in-a-can" inflator/patch.....and there's "run flat" tires....... Cheers! Steve Sears 1987 Audi 5kTQ 1980 Audi 5k 1962 and '64 Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes (SPAM Blocker NOTE: Remove SHOES to reply) > I bought a CPO 2001 A6 2.7T with the sport package about 6 months ago. I > noticed the spare was not a real wheel, but a "donut." The dealer told me [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Anybody know whether my car was originally equipped with a full-size rim & > tire? ... > In those couple years, you never ever took a look at the spare wheel? > > Regards > > Wolfgang That's nothing. I bought my 2 year old A4 from a guy who had never opened the hood. --Art |
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