Car serviced by Audi last week now I have a suspected Head gasket failure! PLEASE HELP

[TaxedAndConfused]

I know

[S.O.L]

Well after kicking up a fuss and writing a strongly worded letter making it clear that I am not just going to disappear without a very public fight, they have sent me 2 letters. The most recent one has asked for evidence of the recent service and MOT that was carried out prior to the warranty being purchased so that they can investigate the matter further??!!

I am getting really frustrated by the whole saga....alternative transportation is starting to cost me a small fortune and on top of it the garage where my car is are chasing me everyday!

[389shell]

I can't believe this is still going on!

[MARTIN3030]

Me either....and the worst of it is an Audi Cab is meant to be seen on the road NOT on the drive

[KTF]

hello just putting my two penny worth in , i thought this was sorted long time ago , did you try the SMMT as i had posteded way back ?, once they got involved in my very simalar case between my warranty company and a car dealer things moved a long rapido, just trying to help, my car was off road for 6 months whilst i was going from pillar to post .

[389shell]

Any updates? Please don't say it's not sorted!

[S.O.L]

Sadly, I ended up footing the bill

Warranty company (Tesco) were a BIG BIG waste of time!

[janb]

Hi Sol
I am having exactly the same prob with my porsche boxster and have just had to shell out £1300.00 to get it back on the road and they refuse to cover it under warranty....although it is a warranty issue. Get the FOS involved i am pinning my hopes on them and hoping to get the repairs cost paid back and also over £1000.00 in hire car charges!!! Whats the point in selling these warranties when they are not worth a thing???
Jan b

	The Financial Ombudsman Service For the most part, don't bother. The Ombudsman is an industry arranged service which is under-resourced, takes too long, lacks clear transparency. You have no idea what evidence the FOS has received from the bank or how your complain has really been handled. The FOS is the preferred complaints route for the banking industry. The county court is to be preferred by consumers for its speed, openness, the quality of its awards and also because it will award 8% interest on top of any damages won by you. The Ombudsman should normally be used to solving little technical difficulties or customer service problems which you have expereinced with your bank.

[389shell]

Tesco

My local supermarket is Tesco, I haven't set foot in the place for over a year because they care for nobody except themselves!

[S.O.L]

Originally Posted by janb

Hi Sol
I am having exactly the same prob with my porsche boxster and have just had to shell out £1300.00 to get it back on the road and they refuse to cover it under warranty....although it is a warranty issue. Get the FOS involved i am pinning my hopes on them and hoping to get the repairs cost paid back and also over £1000.00 in hire car charges!!! Whats the point in selling these warranties when they are not worth a thing???
Jan b

I'd be keen to see what outcome you are able to achieve. Please keep us posted.

	The Financial Ombudsman Service For the most part, don't bother. The Ombudsman is an industry arranged service which is under-resourced, takes too long, lacks clear transparency. You have no idea what evidence the FOS has received from the bank or how your complain has really been handled. The FOS is the preferred complaints route for the banking industry. The county court is to be preferred by consumers for its speed, openness, the quality of its awards and also because it will award 8% interest on top of any damages won by you. The Ombudsman should normally be used to solving little technical difficulties or customer service problems which you have expereinced with your bank.

[rambo]

I know it does'nt help, but my experience of car warranties is they are not worth the paper they are written on!
You are better off telling the dealer to forget the warranty and ask for some money off the car.
If your spending alot on a car, an inspection is a MUST.

[S.O.L]

Would be interesting to see statistics of the sort of repairs that actually get approved on these useless policies. The fact that they make you pay for a strip down before they turn up and give you the pre-meditated NO is nothing short of criminal. It wouldn't surprise me if the engineers they send out to inspect were in some way incentivised to find reasons to say NO!

After my saga with Tesco, they sent me a letter saying they would cancel my policy and give me a full refund......However, since then they have continued to debit my account rather than refund my money!!!!

[DorsetStrider]

Originally Posted by S.O.L

it says they changed Antifreeze on the receipt and I checked all levels before leaving the Dealership to make sure. But I am worried that it might not have been changed correctly hence my problem. Head gaskets don't tend to just fail on cars like this.....there is usually a reason!

Head gasket failer on these engines is not a common fault. I'd take an educated guess at one of the 4 following reasons for this.

1) The coolant systems wasn't correctly bled. (these engines tend to trap bubbles of air in the hoses which could conceivably cause an air lock)
2) Audi specify G12 antifreeze. It's possible that standard antifreeze was used, when mixed with g12 under certain conditions it can turn to a gel which will obviously block the flow of coolant causing overheating. This happened to a friend of mine on his Golf.
3) They anti freeze mix was far too weak... with the cold weather we have been having the water has frozen in the engine.
4) Thermostat failier... however they are designed to fail open so this is unlikely.

That said I'd say your best bet is going throu tesco's warrenty. As has already been said Audi will swear it's not their fault, if it wasn't their fault it can't be a pre exsisting condition therefore your warrenty should pay.