17705 Pressure drop + How to deal with dealers?

Anonymouse

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My first Audi and first post, so Hi and that :)

I recently bought an A3, which is under extended warranty until next year. I've also bought myself VAG-COM + cable to read off faults. Last week it pulled off the following :-
17705 - Pressure Drop between Turbo and Throttle Valve (check D.V.!)
P1297 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
Now it was due to go into a main dealer the following week for some other work. So I made a printout of the error, cleared it to ensure it wasn't old and asked the dealer to take a look while it was in. The evening before it was due in I ran an auto-scan again and noticed it had reappeared. I figured this was good as it confirmed it was a current fault and saved us some diagnostics time. I left the fault in memory.

Upon dropping it off at the dealer I explained that a local specialist had noted the error, provided me a copy and cleared it. They grimmaced, saying that it shouldn't have been cleared but they would see if it had been relogged (which I knew it had). Fair enough. Later on the other work had been completed and my car was ready to collect. However they couldn't find any logged faults and thus couldn't investigate it further at the moment. Though they invoiced me £25 labour for connecting it up to look at the memory.

When I got home later, I ran a VAG-COM auto-scan again and voila, this time no faults. How strange. So I'm left with a few questions..

1) Does my warranty stand at risk from using VAG-COM to read off fault codes myself? How do those of you using dealerships and VAG-COM approach it - be honest, or make up a bit of guff?

2) Where do I stand with getting this resolved (especially while it's in warranty)? And am I to assume that the dealership noticed the error but just cleared it, or could there be a more innocent explanation?

Although I have saved and dated logs of the scans, I realise that it's pretty much their word against mine and I'm not interested in arguing over it. Being a new car I can't be sure whether it's affecting the performance or health. But obviously a fault is a fault - a bad thing. Perhaps I should just take it to another dealer. Which seems a pity, as otherwise the service was good and efficient.

Thanks in advance.
 
1) Does my warranty stand at risk from using VAG-COM to read off fault codes myself?

No. There's a reason all brands of cars have a standarized connector for a scan-tool, and that's because the US and the EU have mandated that cars should be scannable by people other than the dealer.

I really doubt that fault cleared itself. It normally takes something on the order of 20 driving cycles with no recurrence of the fault condition before a code like that will clear itself. I expect they cleared it.

However, simply clearing a fault is not that irrational a thing to do if (as far as they know) it's the first time this fault has ocurred, and you don't report any other symtopms such as driveability problems and the MIL isn't on.

What approach works best with a dealer who is less than wonderful -- as yours appears to be -- will vary tremendously with the personality of the people you're dealing with.

My advice: Try to make friends with one or more of the mechanics. The people in the front office are typically not very knowledgable. You'd be amazed how much a box of fresh donuts left on the passenger seat, and/or a £10 tip will do for the attitude of the mechanics in the shop.

-Uwe-