Abysmally Poor Service

Item: Audi South Africa
Rating: 1

I purchased an Audi Q7 3.0 TDI Quattro from Audi Northcliff on the 13th of December 2016 – the vehicle had just under 7 000km on the odometer (it has now got ± 16 000km). Early in May 2017, an adaptive headlight fault warning and alarm appeared on the dash (and the adaptive lights stopped functioning). I booked the car in at Audi Northcliff to attend to this fault (plus a knocking sound from the rear suspension and a rattle). The car was with the dealership for 1 day – on collection of the vehicle I was advised that they were unable to repair the adaptive headlight fault, and that there were factory recall issues pertaining to the rear suspension and the lower gear lever linkage that needed to be attended to (as well as several software upgrades) and that I would need to bring the vehicle back in for this work. The vehicle was returned to Audi Northcliff (± mid-May) for the aforementioned work to be carried out – although this was envisaged as a 1 day repair, the vehicle was at the dealership for 2 days. On collection of the vehicle I was advised that the factory recall issues relating to the gear lever linkage and the rear suspension had been attended to and some of the software upgrades had been conducted and the rattle resolved – however they had been unable to repair the defect with the adaptive headlights. I was then advised that it would be necessary to import parts from Germany (apparently comprising a gel pad which sits between the camera and the windscreen) and that it would take approximately one week for these to arrive in South Africa. After not hearing from the dealership for nearly 2 weeks, I called Audi Northcliff on 29 May – they then checked their records and advised that the parts had indeed arrived some days previously. On the 30th May arrangements were finalised between myself the service consultant (Pierre) that I would drop the vehicle off at Audi Northcliff on Monday 5th June and that a courtesy vehicle would be provided to me. My car was booked to go to Audi Centre Sandton on Tuesday 6th June to have the repairs and calibration done on the adaptive headlights (this work was envisaged require 2 days to complete). On Monday afternoon (5th June, ± 14:00 hrs) I called the dealership to make sure that all arrangements were in place. The service consultant (Pierre) was not at his desk at the time so I requested that he return my call. By 16:00 I had still not heard from the dealership, so set off to drop off my vehicle. When arriving the dealership I was advised that the courtesy vehicle had not been booked – at this stage I was furious and went to complain to the service manager (Ricardo) advising him that despite making arrangements a week earlier and phoning to re-confirm this arrangement, it was apparent that my car had not been booked in and that no courtesy vehicle had been arranged – Ricardo’s response to me was “do you have that in writing” – I found this to be highly insulting – especially in light of the fact that the service consultant confirmed that he had failed to make the necessary arrangements and failed to call me back. Whilst sitting in the traffic on the way back from the dealership (± 16:40 on Mon 5th June) I phoned the dealership and asked to be put through to Mr Mark Simon (the Dealer Principal) – I was advised that he was not at his desk, but would return my call (it is now one month later, and as yet he has not returned my call). The car was subsequently dropped off at Audi Northcliff on Wednesday afternoon (7th June, ± 14:00 hrs). The car was booked to go to Audi Centre Sandton on Thursday the 8th June to have the parts fitted and the lights calibrated. After receiving a series of excuses each day, I eventually got my car back nearly a week later ( 13th June; ± 17:00 hrs). (As per the attached mail I made a written request on 12 June for Mr Mark Simon to call me – although the service manager, Ricardo called me on 12 June to provide a progress update I have still not received a call from Mr Mark Simon). On the evening of Thursday 15th June I set off to the Pilanesberg area for the long weekend. This provided a good opportunity to check the functionality of the adaptive headlights (very dark with limited on-coming vehicles). Although the adaptive feature was eventually functional again, the lights were only illuminating to a brightness somewhere between ‘dip’ and ‘bright’ – thus requiring the me to manually change to ‘bright’ to properly see the road ahead. Audi Northcliff requested that I take the vehicle directly to Audi Centre Sandton. The vehicle was dropped off at Audi Centre Sandton by myself at 09:45 on Mon the 3rd of July. I was evetually advised that the vehicle was ready for collection on Wed 5 July at 17:00hrs (3 days later, with no courtesy car provided!). I drove the vehicle on the night of the 5th July - and sent a feedback e-mail to Audi Centre Sandton at 23:08 on the 5th July. I advised Audi Centre Sandton that the problem was now worse in that the lights were too high on both dip and bright in either adaptive or manual modes. I received an acknoledgement of my mail at 08:17 on Thurs 6th July. Despite reminder e-mails to both Audi Centre Sandton (Kirsten Pentecost) and the Audi South Africa Customer Care consultant (Liezl Lombard) plus a phone call to Audi Sandton this morning (10th July), I have received no response to my request to have this defect remedied.

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