Dealer Joy Riding

XPOWER

XPOWER

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I took my car in for a service at the local dealer. I was pleased with the level of service. But I had a look at the data file on my GPS logging system in the car and I was a bit miffed that they had been driving it at 112mph in a 50mph zone in a 3 mile blast.:mad:

I reported it to the dealer and they said they would get back to me. 4 months later I gave up waiting and phoned Audi Customer Services and gave them the data files.
Has anyone else had any experience of dealers taking your for a joy ride?
 
XPOWER said:
I took my car in for a service at the local dealer. I was pleased with the level of service. But I had a look at the data file on my GPS logging system in the car and I was a bit miffed that they had been driving it at 112mph in a 50mph zone in a 3 mile blast.:mad:

I reported it to the dealer and they said they would get back to me. 4 months later I gave up waiting and phoned Audi Customer Services and gave them the data files.
Has anyone else had any experience of dealers taking your for a joy ride?
Click to expand...



**** that i'd have gone in there and started taking the place appart until they gave me answers.:haudrauf:
 
Good 2 B A Gooner said:
**** that i'd have gone in there and started taking the place appart until they gave me answers.:haudrauf:
Click to expand...

seconded, garage near me took in someones 2 year old scoob sti for a respray, they decided before spraying to take it out for a boot, it ended up upside down in a field after rolling 3 times, owner of motor went skits and floored the owner of the garage, noice!!
 
Sure there was a post on here a while back from someone who experienced the same - he went to the papers, that way the dealer/Audi customer service will be more likely to sit up and take notice!
 
You just reminded me actually, on my first service with my S3, I took it to the dealers, as I was non the wiser until I joined here. They took it for a quick spin on my behalf.... but I didn't know about it until a week later, when a friend told me he saw me driving like a loone in town the other day.... it wasn't me I said to him....
 
Sorry dude, but waiting 4 months for a reply is crazy!!!

Get onto the Press, get to the big boss man at Audi and make sure you are having words with the Manager at the dealers that you took it to, I would have kicked off bigtime and caused WW3!!!!

I wouldnt be happy doing that in my own car, let alone someone else doing it!!!

NO WAY JOSE!!! :asskicking::gun2:
 
The yahoo news link has expired, but HERE'S the ASN thread. I'm sure I've read of it happening to an Audi too somewhere.....
 
You should rape them silly. Thats absolutely silly and you should take these suckers to the ground! Sue the pants off them and get a wodd loads of cash and go on holiday! :D One of my mates took his car into an audi dealer with a full tank of petrol, zero'd the clock and when he got it back, he had half a tank with only 44 miles passed? He complained and apparently if you sign somthing that says that they have your consent to take the car on public roads to diagnose a problem or to check the car, then its illegal and they could get prosecuted? I may be wrong but worth finding out ey? Good luck fella and i hope you get these suckers back! We're behind you here!
 
Audi Customer Serive is phoning me back tomorrow so I waiting to hear what he says.
The thing is the service manger at the dealership said they should have not taken the car out at all there was no reason to.
But the fact is that they took it out 3 times over the day.
There was a story last year about a guy who went to get his Monaro's radiator fix and the garge took it on a 125mph joy ride.
But he had a Roadhawk RH-1 video and gps system fitted so it filmed the whole ride.
 
XPOWER said:
There was a story last year about a guy who went to get his Monaro's radiator fix and the garge took it on a 125mph joy ride.
But he had a Roadhawk RH-1 video and gps system fitted so it filmed the whole ride.
Click to expand...

Thats what I linked to.
 
A few years ago i took my car in for service....had to leave it overnight there. Imagine my horror as i get over taken by it that night!!!

Needless to say my service was free....
 
A3Tom said:
A few years ago i took my car in for service....had to leave it overnight there. Imagine my horror as i get over taken by it that night!!!

Needless to say my service was free....
Click to expand...

Ahahahaha! One of those moments when after the initial shock a big grin spreads across your face as you think to yourself "Gotcha..."
 
LOL Tom, classic moment...I dont know if I would be happy or sad if I saw that happen to my car.
 
There was an incident here in Ro with an R8. It happened last summer. the owner took the car to Audi service to have the oil, filters etc. replaced. He didn't wait in the lobby until the operation was done. He left and said will come back by the end of the program to pick up the car.
When the monkey boys realized they have the R8 for a few hours, they've decided to take it for "a test drive". The service is located near by a highway. The car burnt some 70 KMs away...
 
A3Tom said:
A few years ago i took my car in for service....had to leave it overnight there. Imagine my horror as i get over taken by it that night!!!

Needless to say my service was free....
Click to expand...

LMAO
 
Tom,

Please tell me you were in uniform when that happened, and just happened to stop them...

'Is this your car sir? Or is it mine perhaps?'

Cheers,
 
See this is why I worry everytime my car is handed over to anyone.

Took it in for a part on the back to be resprayed, but due to work commitments, had to leave it at a dealer who would then take it to the Manchester spray shop.

Came back with half a tank gone, several new scratches and stone chips and 38 miles travelled, with the shop being 10 miles away max. There an back gives a defecit of 18 miles. . .
 
If it was doing about 120mph, that sounds about right doesnt it...lol
 
My car went in for its first oil service last year and when i got the car back it had nearly 10miles on the clock. I blew up at the service manager and managed to get a £50.00 discount. Needless to say i have never been back at that Audi branch. Since then i purchased a GPS data logger for piece of mind, you just cant trust garages with all the idiots working at them. If i got my car bag and it had exceeded 100mph i would go straight to Audi to give them a chance to rectify the matter then if they didnt play ball i would be straight on the phone to the papers. If you were caught exceeding 100mph a judge would fling the book at you so why should it be different for some idiot mechanic. Why they think its appropriate to take someones pride and joy out and do these kind of speeds is beyond me.

For anyone looking for information on my GPS tracker
The GPS tracker i have records data every second, within 2.5 meters’ accuracy: Speed, Address of stops, Duration of stops, Time en route, Arrival Addresses, Direction of vehicle.
Its one of the best items i have purchased for my car as i no longer worry if they take my car out on a test drive because i now know exactly what is going on.

Heres the links:

Company that makes the tracker: http://www.landairsea.com/gps-tracking-systems/gps-tracking.html
Ebay Link: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360223007654&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Cheers Davie
 
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XPOWER said:
There was a story last year about a guy who went to get his Monaro's radiator fix and the garge took it on a 125mph joy ride.
But he had a Roadhawk RH-1 video and gps system fitted so it filmed the whole ride.
Click to expand...

The video of that is still on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZbQ_KOGBcQ

Have you heard back from the dealer yet?
If they shouldn't have even taken your car out then I wonder if they could be charged with TWOC?

I think it's a lot more common than people think. I know a mechanic who works for Mercedes and he's always boasting how he takes cars for a joy ride, he says it's the best part of his job. :mad:
He's not a friend of mine, by the way.

I'm probably going to buy the Roadhawk RH-1, hardwire it into the ignition and hide all the wires, etc. It should be well hidden from inside the vehicle, and it's good to have in case of a non-fault accident/collision too.
 
A friend of mine years ago used to work for Honda in the garage area. Used to tell me all the things they got upto with other peoples property; motor cycles and cars. Aparently someone at the garage took a car for a spin, drove it too fast into the garage and hit the wall.
 
audi upgrades
Well they didn't phone back. I'm ringing them tomorrow and hope they have a good excuse! :asskicking:
 
Dude, who are you waiting to ring you??

Just get onto the main man - Jeremy.Hicks@audi.co.uk

Send him a sternly worded email and expext a prompt response.
 
Just to clarify my experience...

It was about 7 years ago, before I ended up as a fed.

I'd put it in for a service and some warranty work (Clio!!!) and they had to keep it overnight to finish the job the following day. I had no problem with this so let them keep it, I was told I couldnt drive the car so it had to stay at the dealers...fair enough I thought.

Roll on 10.00pm ish and being driven home from the pub by a mate and I see my car fly past us. I was obviously a bit bothered by it so stewed overnight (had my car been nicked?) till I called the dealers early doors.

After firstly saying it hadnt left the workshop and me calling him out saying I have a mate who can ID it as my car also (Burton snowboards sticker in the back window) the service manager finally told me it had been out. He said a tech took it home so he could road test it...so it had been taken home by someone, overnight..parked outside his house (god knows where) without me knowing or without my permission. God knows what could have happened if it was damaged/nicked etc. Dealers stood firm with me till I called them back after speaking to my dad (who was a fed at the time) and started explaining the term 'technical TWOC' to them. It seems the road test was tis fister ragging the crap out of it late at night.

Anyway, free service, free mats, free valet etc and much **** kissing to get me back on side....think the tech got the boot too.

Muppets
 
Wow, i find thos disgusting

Agreed with the people saying "why are you waiting around!?"

Kick off about it!!!
 
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Good stuff, let us know how you get on with it mate, will be good to get a result from this.
 
LOL stupid *** dealers joyriding again eh!?

Well i work for Tracker in the Control Room as some might know. We've had these cases quite a few times! Last one i had was an R32 and the dude was NOT happy!! He bought it brand new from VW and the car kept going in with problems. After a few months it had to go in for brakes after the first couple of visits.

He went nuts on the phone when i told him about his car and what is was doing whilst it was at the dealers for a 'service'. They were doing 70mph on a residential road, then they were doing 90+ on a bypass. I gave him copies of all the logs and he took it to the dealers to screw them over! He said no wonder why his brakes are f***ed because the techs keep blasting his car!

Anyway, spoke to him a month later and ask what happened. They have given his next service for free, a couple of expensive R32 accessories including the R32 luxury car mats which cost alot for car mats! They also said they would fire the tech who done the crime but he said he didn't want that and ruin someones life over it. He just wanted his car back to normal without any problems.
 
We had the same thing with a new Audi RS6 a few years ago. His car also had the same Tracker Response system as the R32 man above. That RS6 story was pretty big! We've got the newspaper article stuck on the wall here in our Control Room lol.
 
Cmon then Aje, discount time innit ;)
 
I had a phone call from Mr Hick's PA saying that the local Audi centre will phone me today.
In an hour the manager phoned me. He thought the matter was closed because I had spoken to him after the initial phone conversation in his office. I had to correct him by saying that I have only spoken to him once.
He was apologetic and said that the technician is on his last warning and if he even looks out of line then he was out.

I think I've got the result I was after. Audi themselves know the situation so I hope they feed it back to the other dealers that if they do this type of thing they are going to be caught out.
 
You should of tried to squeeze something out of them in some sort of compensation. Think of it this way, if you did that to one of their cars, then you would of been in court right now. Its only fair dude.
 
Agree with Gops, at least a free service or something needs to be had out of this..send a follow up email to Jeremy advising of what has happened and express your disappointment of not being offered anything as a goodwill gesture and that your faith in Audi has really dropped...

No worries Gops, worth a try hey ;)
 
XPOWER said:
I had a phone call from Mr Hick's PA saying that the local Audi centre will phone me today.
In an hour the manager phoned me. He thought the matter was closed because I had spoken to him after the initial phone conversation in his office. I had to correct him by saying that I have only spoken to him once.
He was apologetic and said that the technician is on his last warning and if he even looks out of line then he was out.

I think I've got the result I was after. Audi themselves know the situation so I hope they feed it back to the other dealers that if they do this type of thing they are going to be caught out.
Click to expand...

Is that it?

I'd want more than an apology and a warning for the tech!!!
 
nilz18t said:
Agree with Gops, at least a free service or something needs to be had out of this..send a follow up email to Jeremy advising of what has happened and express your disappointment of not being offered anything as a goodwill gesture and that your faith in Audi has really dropped...

No worries Gops, worth a try hey ;)
Click to expand...

Lol! well you know it nilz! And Nilz is right, I mean you have lost faith in their services now because of all of this. Take this as far as possible because they broke the law not you. I'd be happy with 3 years free services :D or atleast two and some nice mats? ... Dont forget the air freshener!
 
audi upgrades
Anyone here read EVO magazine? They run a long-term Mercedes SL and in the monthly fleet reports, the journo said he zero'd the odometer before handing the car in and it was returned with more than 100 miles on the clock.

He stated he wouldn't pursue it, but in the next issue the Letter Of The Month was from an owner with TWO similar stories, the second of which resulted in his M3 Convertible being destroyed in an accident. I liked his line "The dealer's M3 was waiting for me when I got home."

I also recall a story from a mate at Uni, whose Dad claimed to own the UK's largest collection of Lancia Delta Integrales (4 or 5 I think). He had an ultra-rare yellow version which a mechanic totalled when it was supposed to be in for a service. My mate said he had to accompany his Dad to the dealer after he'd found out, and he said he did everything but level the place on arrival. He was well compensated but the car was irreplaceable.

What's scary from reading the above is that this practice almost seems commonplace. My Bora (LOL) was recently serviced and I noticed it had done 4 miles when I got it back, but I agree that concrete examples of this need to get on to the TV or newspapers to highlight the problem. Shocking.
 
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