I dear God, you have me imagining the worst now because I am picking up my A3 from its first service tomorrow.
Dropped it into MSL Audi in South Dublin. Very impressive premises. pity the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing in there. Booked it in for its service over the phone and the receptionist took my details. She was booking me in for a Friday afternoon to be collected in the evening. Even though she had my details in front of her, I had to tell her it wasn't just its first avs service but it was also due the Brake fluid service (2 years). "Ah we should still be able to fit that in", "hold on, i'm not finished yet", I said, "The cars chasis number is within the range of the dual mass flywheel recall and from what I hear thats a 6 hour engine out job", "Hold the line Sir". 5 minutes later, "You are right Sir, we might not fit all that in on Friday", "Too ****** right you won't!! I'm not leaving my car in over a weekend!!"
Anyway car was booked in for first thing last Monday. MSL arranged a hire car courtesy of Audi because of the recall. Hire car guy picks me up from MSL and brings me back to the office to fill in the Hire car paper work and transfer my insurance for 'The Day'. First off I am told my assigned hire car is not available but have been upgraded to a Golf. "Great" says I. It was a 1.4l. Oh my God, I have never driven such a gutless lump of lead in my life. Must be 0-60 in about 18 seconds. TBH it was a better hire car than I was expecting so thats not really my gripe with the hire company. My gripe was that I got my insurance transfer papers from the insurance company this morning and A. the insurance was set to revert back to my car at 9am this morning so had I been collecting the car as soon as MSL opened this morning my insurance in the hired golf would be null and void for the journey to MSL. But it gets better. They transferred my insurance to the Polo I was supposed to get instead of the Golf that I actually got!!
So back to MSL. I couldn't tell the hire company how long to extend the insurance and when they would be getting their car back till I found out when my car would be ready at MSL. So I ring them at 1pm Tuesday to ask. The receptionist tells me its ready to collect now. "Are you sure" I ask. "Well the computer is telling me 'Job Completed'". I asked her was she sure that it wasn't just the regular service 'Job completed'. She said she would get the receptionist down in the service area to ring me back and let me know.
1 hour later no callback so I ring again, explain the whole situtaion about the service/recall to a different receptionist and give out about the lack of a callback. She said she would personally go down to the service area and find out and call me back.
3/4 hour later and no callback, I ring again and get another different receptionist and have to explain everything again and give out to her about the two failed callbacks. Guess what, she'll find out and call me back!!
3/4 of an hour later, the girl who was supposed to make the first callback actually callsback and tells me the car will be ready to collect in at 9am Wednseday morning (So much for it being ready NOW!!). I ask her is she sure because if I go out to collect the car and its not ready, I will go ballistic. "Hold on" she says, "I'll just check for sure with the head mechanic", I overhear the conversation over the phone, "the black A3 will probably be ready for collection at 9am tomorrow won't it?", The mechanic laughs and says 1-2pm more like"
I'll go in to pick it up at 5pm to be sure!!
And if there is so much as a hairline scratch on it never mind what happened to Married Blondes car, I will blow my top!!
The old cliche is so true. "AUDI, great cars, Crap dealers and service"
Oh I nearly forgot! When I dropped the car in I went over to their parts/accessories boutique in the corner of the building to order a few bits'n'bobs. Waited 3 minutes for some lazy fecker to get up of is **** and come out from the back office area. My throat was sore after the (someone get effing out here and serve me) coughs/throat clearances.
So he asks what he can do for me. I tell him I have a part number for one of the parts and he'll have to search the ekta for the other two. "Whats the part number one" he asks. I start to tell him its for an ambient light LED retrofit. "Ah whaa??" I explain again and in mid sentence he turns his back to me and starts filling his till with his float. I stop mid sentance and he turns back around and says, "yeah, go on". I said in a narkey voice, "Forget about what its for, heres the part number". He goes over to the computer and keys it in. Not in stock and its 25 and will have to be ordered. He then searches for the next part in the ekta which is the string with rubber ball that lifts the parcel shelf. He has them in stock. 20.....each!!!!! I was going to replace the one my dog ate but the ****** shoelace will now become a permanent replacement. 20 for a rubber conker!!
He then searches the ekta for the replacement ashtray I need. Not in stock and no price listed. He'll ring me back later with the price. Guess what??