mighty tee
Registered User
I dont post here very often, I am a 8N TT quattro Sport owner, however my wife purchased a new A3 2.0 TDi S-Line Cabriolet in July 2008 which has now been part-exchanged, so I thought I would give you our thoughts on the nearly 7 years of ownership.
The initial pick up went well, although with 30 miles on the clock, I never felt we received a truly "new" car and felt it had been used by the dealer for a test drive or 2 or to get home one evening! Handover though wa in the middle of the used car lot, very disappointing experience.
After about a year we realised the roof was wearing and holes were starting to appear. We raised this at the 2 year service and fair play to Portsmouth Audi they arranged a replacement roof under warranty.
For whatever reason the car attracted punctures writing off 3 or 4 tyres, not an Audi problem.
The next problem was the off-side boot-lid lights gave up the ghost and at MOT Audi quoted a massive £900 to repair it. A little haggling got that price down to £600, however we felt it was nothing more than a fractured wire (possibly caused by the replacement roof???) and left a sour taste.
Then for some reason the driver's door became very stiff, no end of lubrication wouldnt resolve it until one day for no apparent reason it went loose and remained like that for the final few months of having the car.
Meanwhile the roof started to show more wear, and worse still when up the roof could "creak and crack" quite alarmingly. Not the sign of good build quality.
Condensation became another problem in the winter months.
The final straw was an electronics failure, the immobiliser not talking to the car so she started then stopped immediately. This was resolved by disconnecting the battery overnight, which also resolved the Central Locking motor noise which had become a daily occurrence in the weeks running up to the failure.
Another problem was the paint (Phantom Black) was very soft, all bird crap having to removed promptly otherwise it burnt into the paint.
From then on confidence in the car was waning, so the decision was made to replace the car. Nearly 7 years old and 40k on the clock and it has now gone.
The A3 Cabriolet has not lived up to the quality expectations we have for Audi, so despite looking at the new A3 Cabriolet, we have replaced her with a Mercedes SLK350.
The initial pick up went well, although with 30 miles on the clock, I never felt we received a truly "new" car and felt it had been used by the dealer for a test drive or 2 or to get home one evening! Handover though wa in the middle of the used car lot, very disappointing experience.
After about a year we realised the roof was wearing and holes were starting to appear. We raised this at the 2 year service and fair play to Portsmouth Audi they arranged a replacement roof under warranty.
For whatever reason the car attracted punctures writing off 3 or 4 tyres, not an Audi problem.
The next problem was the off-side boot-lid lights gave up the ghost and at MOT Audi quoted a massive £900 to repair it. A little haggling got that price down to £600, however we felt it was nothing more than a fractured wire (possibly caused by the replacement roof???) and left a sour taste.
Then for some reason the driver's door became very stiff, no end of lubrication wouldnt resolve it until one day for no apparent reason it went loose and remained like that for the final few months of having the car.
Meanwhile the roof started to show more wear, and worse still when up the roof could "creak and crack" quite alarmingly. Not the sign of good build quality.
Condensation became another problem in the winter months.
The final straw was an electronics failure, the immobiliser not talking to the car so she started then stopped immediately. This was resolved by disconnecting the battery overnight, which also resolved the Central Locking motor noise which had become a daily occurrence in the weeks running up to the failure.
Another problem was the paint (Phantom Black) was very soft, all bird crap having to removed promptly otherwise it burnt into the paint.
From then on confidence in the car was waning, so the decision was made to replace the car. Nearly 7 years old and 40k on the clock and it has now gone.
The A3 Cabriolet has not lived up to the quality expectations we have for Audi, so despite looking at the new A3 Cabriolet, we have replaced her with a Mercedes SLK350.
