[4WDLover]

Dear Fellow members, I have a late 2011 Audi Q5 (owned from new) which has done under 14,000 Km and has been very carefully maintained and regularly serviced by the dealer as per the service programme. Recently the car refused to start, and I am advised by Audi Gurgaon that there are metal fragments in the fuel system. They have made out an estimate of ₹ 750,000 for replacing the entire fuel system.

To say that I am shocked is an understatement. I have a Swift and an Innova which have been heavily used, probably abused, and done over 100k kilometres, with absolutely no engine issues and, of all cars, this expensive, supposedly "high quality", pampered and carefully used vehicle has delivered a massive blow to me!

After much discussion Audi Gurgaon have offered a 30% 'discount', but I still don't see why I should have to pay over 5 lakhs for the repair of what is clearly a manufacturing issue, or a design fault, or both.

All my attempts to escalate this to Audi India directly have been in vain. The dealer refuses to give me any contact details for the Audi MD (apparently Joe King), and no contact details are to be found on their website. E-mails to info@audi.in have not been answered. The dealer clearly has his hands bound by Audi, and it is pathetic that nobody from Audi's management or technical team has come forward to discuss things with me. I would have thought that a premium brand like Audi would be sensitive about matters concerning product quality, but it looks like they don't care.

Any suggestions on how to take this forward ? Contact details for Mr King would be helpful, as also suggestions on how to get a fair resolution from Audi. Many thanks.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by 4WDLover

Any suggestions on how to take this forward ? Contact details for Mr King would be helpful, as also suggestions on how to get a fair resolution from Audi. Many thanks.

Have you registered a direct complaint with Audi india customer care?
http://www.audi.in/sea/brand/in/New_...r/contact.html

Your queries
Our Service
Audi Call Centre
0120-4670712 (Monday to Saturday – 9 AM to 6 PM)
Audi Club India toll free numbers
1800 210 6984
Customer Service
For any query or feedback related to our products & services, please write to us at customer.first@myaudi.in

Try getting in touch and see if you can get a response. That would be the first step, knowing how the companies operate be prepared for some wait.

[4WDLover]

Hi Jaggu, thanks, we have contacted Audi at this e-mail address but they just referred us back to the same dealer contact!

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by 4WDLover

Hi Jaggu, thanks, we have contacted Audi at this e-mail address but they just referred us back to the same dealer contact!

Why don't you again respond with the updates to this email id and dealer email id. The idea is to get Audi india's attention on the matter. Unless dealer can prove that this issue is due to negligence from the user, i think you have a strong case to be covered under good will warranty. So you can ask dealer to give a written explanation as to why this happened also.

[ku69rd]

Hello,
Can you share more details of your Audi?
Is it a 2 liter TDI engine? Have had similar challenges with my Jetta and I was surprised to see metal particles in my fuel pump. The vehicle died down on during my drive to Ooty and had to undergo lot of hardships to get it towed to nearby service station which was in Coimbatore.

Upon diagnosis, I found out that the pump had disintegrated completely choking the CRDI & Fuel Injectors as well. I was quoted a bill of 450K as they wanted to complete change the FI system (Low Pressure Pump, hi pressure pump, CRDI & Fuel Injectors). The car was not in warranty and I was not in a position to spend that kind of money.

However the service guys in Bangalore were helpful and did a step by step triage and we replaced only the hi pressure pump, Fuel filter & CRDI. I got the fuel injectors overhauled outside. The car has been running fine ever since then and there has been no dip in its performance. All of this took me a good 3 months but since i had other cars at home, Time was not a factor for me.

Suggest you to follow the same as I understand 750K for a 5 year old car is too much of a spend.
Apparently VW has a history of poor FI systems for cars from 2010 to 2012. You can try to google out with the engine details and should be able to get a few further information.

Causal Agents:

Either running with too low fuel in the tank which means that some dust might have gotten into the Fuel Pump causing it to go Kaput --> this was given to me by Service folks

Pure case of metal fatigue where substandard metal might have been used in the composition of Fuel Pump causing it to disintegrate.

PS: Fuel Injectors cost a bomb to replace.

[4WDLover]

Thanks Jaggu, I've written to them again now. Let's see!

Hi ku69rd, this is the 3 litre engine. I suspect that it is a case of metal fatigue as we've been careful with fuel levels, refuelling at good pumps and all filters have been changed regularly.

Did you get your car repaired by the VW dealer, or by an outside garage ?

[Rohan24]

Shocked to hear about such a big problem in a well-maintained low run Audi!
Did you check on European forums, regarding the issue? If its a common issue with models manufactured during a specific period, you can take THAT up with Audi as well, if they try to reason with some hogwash.

Let's hope Audi India respond at the earliest, and sort this out. Such incidents will surely spoil their brand image.
If, in the worst-case scenario, they don't respond, try to contact a renowned Auto magazine, i.e. Autocar, Overdrive, EVO, etc. That should make them take notice.

[ku69rd]

Originally Posted by 4WDLover

Did you get your car repaired by the VW dealer, or by an outside garage ?

Yes but I must admit that they were very friendly. I expressed my helplessness to invest so much for a 6 year old car. They took great pains in triaging by replacing one part at a time before they told me to replace the Hi Pressure Pump & CRDI.

Fuel Injectors I got them overhauled at Vijaya Diesels, Bangalore and they are working absolutely fine. Post the replacement my car has done a good 4K kms with a majority on highways with no complaints.

But there is a minor glitch which I have observed, that is the car hunts when it is in idle and in a cold engine start. After the car runs a good 3-4 kms the hunt disappears. This was attributed to the fuel injector when I asked them to recheck. Not worth spending another 250K for the injectors I decided to live with the hunt

All the best mate and do keep us posted on your share.

[anandbhat]

This is how Audi is setup in India. There is no way to reach Audi directly, they have completely shielded themselves through dealers, and dealers have limited knowledge/know how to conclude.

When My car was delivered without navigation software, I couldn't reach to Audi no matter what, after 3 months of numerous calls to dealer and mails to customer.first, I did get the software installed.
Check below link for lot of details.
http://www.truedelta.com/Audi-Q5/engine-problems-874

[Mortis]

Why not send an email to their parent group in Europe ? Also posts on their Twitter and FB pages for Europe and India might yield some results