I’ve been having an issue with the spring in the door flap to the charging connector in an RS Etron GT. Not a major issue but it is sometimes frustrating when you’re standing at an EA charger and cannot get the flap open. Finally scheduled an appointment with the Audi dealership.
Dropped off the car and received a standard text message with the service advisor’s info and instructions to communicate through the text thread. The day after dropping off the car, I replied to the text and received an auto-response that the advisor is out of town for a week. I then called the dealership and spoke to another advisor.
He informed me that is “normally” takes 2-3 days for a tech to look at a car. Uh…sounds like a stupid response when they required scheduling appointments. But ok.
3 days later, I still haven’t heard anything. I called the dealership many times and kept getting vm. I went to their website and sent a message to the service manager explaining the situation and asking for an update.
I received a text from another service advisor that my car is still waiting to be assigned to a technician. They’ve had the car for over 3 days and no one has even looked at it to determine what part they need to order to fix the door flap.
Total waste of time. I got a ride back to the dealer and picked up the car. What is the point of scheduling an appointment if the dealer isn’t going to prioritize the appointment? And if they’re short staffed, why are they taking appointments that they cannot service?
Pretty irritating. I’m going to call another Audi dealership to set expectations before I drop the car off again. Is it worth complaining to Audi Corporate over the first service experience?
These service areas from my experience have a separate technician for EVs that come in only a few times per week or month. I don’t agree with their practice, but that’s what I’ve noticed while having an e-tron SUV and my current Blazer EV. While it doesn’t make sense they need a separate technician to just handle a charging door flap, these companies may have a separate policy for who can handle EVs or who’s trained to work on the specific EV vehicles.
That’s fine if they do that. But wouldn’t it seem reasonable to take that into consideration when booking appointments? Rather than telling people it’s normal to have your car sit for over 3 days before anyone even looks at the car?
I would start with the Service Director at the dealership, especially if you are going to be servicing with them ever again.
I might frame this as
here was my experience (scheduled when, dropped when, assigned when, follow ups you made)
Maybe I did something wrong but what should the process be? Especially if I need to this again, eg
I wouldn’t assert that or assume anything, but frame the question in a way they can tell you “Ernie EV Tech is our Audi master mechanic and expert on charging doors that dont open and he comes in on Thursdays”
Not your fault, definitely get it off your chest either way, but if you want it fixed (for someone else, or for you next time) speak to their management first. If this is your last Audi service ever and you want to throw a grenade, involve corporate.
I agree with you that they should, but it depends on the service advisor. Some service advisors from my experience will tell me the schedule of EV technicians, but some will just say “we don’t know how long it takes”. I guess I was just lucky to always receive a courtesy loaner vehicle that matches what I own.
you’re right that community is key from the service advisors. My best experiences with service advisors is always informing me when the EV technicians will come in and how long it’ll take. I usually don’t mind them holding my car if they give me a proper loaner vehicle but lack of communication can be really frustrating. I hope OP gets his service situation figured out though
What exactly do you expect Audi Corporate to do? Call the dealer and say everyone clear your schedule, WeakestLink needs his car fixed ASAP!!
It’s your fault for not asking upfront how long you can expect the car to be in the shop. Now if you had and they said, a day, OK you may have a case for being upset. But otherwise, it’s on you, not the dealer.
My experience with all brands in modern history has been that the time you reserve is a drop-off time, and you have no expectation that it’s going to be seen by a technician at the time you reserve.
Specifically and most recently with Audi, whether it was one of the 3 or 4 or 5 recalls or the two required routine services, I never got my car back the same day, and even getting an update on the day of dropoff was the exception.
At least some of this is because the dealership cannot possibly know at the time of making an appointment what is wrong with everyone’s car or how long the issue(s) will take to remediate, so it’s impossible to predict with certainty when it’s your car’s turn.
This inconvenience it generally mitigated by providing a loaner car when possible.
You’ll note that when you schedule something like an appliance delivery, they don’t tell you they’ll be there at 1:20 pm. You get a range from 12-4.
I didn’t expect them to fix it in 1-2 days. But I did expect (reasonably imo) that they would look at it in 1-2 days to tell me what was needed and to provide an estimated timeframe. They had my last RS for 2 weeks and I had no issues because they told me the diagnosis what needed to be done.
But I have an issue with them not even looking at the car 3 days from the day THEY scheduled the appointment and to not even have it in the queue for a technician. Why tell me to bring the car in on a Tues if they weren’t going to have someone available to diagnose the car until the following Mon or Tues?
To reiterate, we’re talking about a spring in the flap covering the charging port. Not some intermittent electrical or mechanical problem.
Is that what you gathered from my post? I would hope that Audi Corporate would log my complaint and, if they have similar complaints from other customers, contact the dealer and advise them to 1) improve their scheduling 2) not schedule appointments if they don’t have available techs and/or 3) advise customers upfront the expected time frame for diagnosis.
I disagree based on owning/leasing 100+ cars (maybe I don’t keep them long enough to be serviced) but I think it is reasonable to expect a diagnosis within 1-2 days from the day the dealer schedules an appointment. Or at least some update after 3 days.
