Goodbye to the A2 nightmare...

  • Thread starter Goodbye-bad buy
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Goodbye-bad buy

Guest
So thankyou and goodbye to a car with more faults than Nu-Labour..

Bought my '02 plate 1.4 SE A2 in from a local independant dealer in December last year...had it fully serviced,the cambelt changed...then after two weeks,THAT light came on.:eek:

Sent under warranty to the local garage....vag-com'd,reset.....same light back on a few days later...back to the garage...
Much toing and froing later....more diagnostics,fuel sensor replaced.Creaking rear seats....problems with "grinding noise" when starting...more trips to garage...

Sent to Stockport Audi by exasperated dealer...they had it for three days after it being booked in for one.:confused:

They charged £330 to replace the dipstick and re-set the fault codes..and wash the car.....:mad:

Sent to another "expert" who had the car 3 weeks-came back "repaired."
Engine management light back on after 3 days....:mad:

Back to Stockport Audi...in there for another four days...cleaned out throttle assembly,stopped engine running "rich."
Charged the dealer I bought the car from another £100.....

Got car back....nice....:):)......

For a week...one short trip on the motorway and....:mad::mad:

Back to the dealer I bought the A2 from...after nearly four months of non-stop grief-managed to negotiate a partial refund.
We're both out of pocket.He has acted superbly and professionally throughout,given me a courtesy car to use and I would not hesitate to buy another car from him in the future.

Audi Stockport were rubbish.


I've since bought an A3 for less than I paid for the A2 and it's absolutely miles away from the A2 in terms of build quality.
The A2 is a great little car but if you get a "rogue" and it starts to go wrong it's just like tipping good money after bad.I persevered with mine in the hope that I could fix it but life's too short to be looking for that damn management light every time you go above 50mph...
I would NEVER buy a petrol A2 ever again.To anyone lookng in-in my experience it's just not worth the hassle.Pay the extra and get a diesel.


So long,A2.I won't miss you.
 
Oh dear, is this what this site is going to turn into? An anomymous user with a tale of woe, with his first and probably last post? Okay, you bought your dream car and it turned out to be a nightmare. You did the right thing getting rid of it. I'm actually surprised you put up with it for so long.

So what is the lesson to be learnt here? When you buy an old car, with an unknown history, beware. I don't think it matters what the make or model is.

Wishing you better luck with your A3.

John.
 
The other lesson here is don't trust main dealers to fix a problem for you - regardless of car make, model or age, they just don't have the commercial imperative, or detailed specialist knowlege of each and every type, to be able to spend enough (non-billable) time to properly problem solve and correctly repair the jobs. Yes, they should, but they don't.

All cars will be unreliable eventually - all things will wear out/ break regardless of who made it. Sh*t happens/ law of entropy!
 
John has a point about first and last post. But the user has probably been lurking here for a while as guest. What he probably should have done was to post his problem on the forum, with the collective wisdom of Mike, Spike, our German friends and many others, may be it could have been less painful.

VAG-COM can only tell you so much, electronic parts can fail due to other reasons than themselves. Dealer mechanics often only try to fix only what the fault code says. E.g. my air-con failure was initially a temperature probe fault that wasn't even broken, it was the compressor which VAG-COM cannot detect.

Just a thought, how did the OP know the diesel is more reliable? Mine is an 8yr old petrol and not a single problem under the engine bay, ever! Not even the ARB needed replacing (suspect the lighter front somewhat helps).
 
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