DO NOT use Audi Claremont. Your brand new car WILL require parts.

I LOVE Audi, the brand the product the entire package. I have only ever owned an Audi! It is my last one though. I do not want to be a hater but I guess with the help of Audi Claremont I now am.

My Letter to the service manager Bennie on the 31st of October, is yet to receive a response. He asked me to send an email his way so he could investigate and put this right. mmm I am no longer expecting him to respond until he needs my credit card again.

Hello Bennie,

I purchased the Audi A3 from VW Claremont about 3 weeks after taking ownership of the vehicle which now had 5000 kilometers more than it did the week before it the vehicle would just rev and the gearbox would not engage.

My wife dealt with the branch manager who took the vehicle in for two weeks and returned it after sending it to Audi Claremont to replace the "Entire gearbox".

I was expected to pay 5000 towards the gearbox, I am still waiting on the invoice to pay this. We both know this task was never carried out. When I took the vehicle into ACD in Belville for a service I noticed the logbook was missing.

This means I now have a vehicle without a FULL service history which was logged. VW deny ever removing it. I cannot prove this so I let it go.

I booked my car in for a service with Audi as ACD said they cannot work on electrics and I had three issues with the vehicle I wanted rectified.

The rear passenger window stopped working, the console reported the front head light as blown and the heater was not functioning. VW claimed to have fixed the heater as well. Which is still not working.

I was informed that the heater fan was faulty and needed to be replaced. It did not solve the issue and the fan was working just fine when it arrived at Audi.

After fixing the rear window I now have a new intermittent fault. Every now and then the doors refuse to unlock. I have to manually open the drivers door and open the passenger doors from inside.

Audi serviced the vehicle and gave me a number of parts that needed to be replaced.

An intake manifold at 15000, a fuse box and they fixed the back window. Apparently the head light error and the rear window were failing due to a break in the wiring loom.

I paid 600 + labor to replace a number plate light which I have never seen work either. I do not know how this failed when in Audi's care and I get billed for it but it has never worked.

I was told the intake manifold was to blame for the poor performance of the vehicle. It since turns out this was not the case.

There were two oil leaks that needed to be addressed. I was aware of an oil leak somewhere as I replace a pint of oil approximately every two months. After the leaks have been fixed I now replace a pint of oil every other tank of petrol.

So after fixing two oil leaks my vehicle now uses 300% more oil.

The ABS was faulty and Audi needed to replace parts as they were defective from the production line. I was billed for this as well. If a part is known to be faulty from the factory why am I being billed for poor manufacturing?

None the less the above parts were ordered and the vehicle went in for repair.

It came back and I was then informed that the petrol pump was faulty and needed to be replaced and this is certainly the cause of the vehicles performance.

Needless to say when I arrived to collect the vehicle I was then informed the clutch is worn out and needs to be replaced.

Today I collected the vehicle from Audi and on starting the vehicle in Darron's presence I have a new error "TDS error"

To summerise, I brought the vehicle to Audi to fix a window, an error with the head light warning, a heater that is not working and a service.

As things stand at present after +/- R100 000

The heater is still not working after replacing a fan that was working just fine.

The doors refuse to open quite a bit.

The number plate warning light I never had in the past is flashing after being replaced.

I use +/- 300% more oil.

I now have a water warning light coming on every two weeks, this never happened before. It takes about a cup of water hat has left the system.

After the clutch has been replaced the vehicle performs much better but it still gets stuck in a gear and revs rather than accelerating.

My interpretation of the issue at hand.

Audi are either **********ly encouraging this behavior from their staff or they need to invest in mechanics. OBC codes like ANY instrumented system are only a guideline.

It still requires a mechanic to engage the grey matter between their ears. Unless of course mechanics are a career of the past and vehicle manufacturers now only employ parts replacement specialists.

This is a fairly harsh stance to take and somewhat derogatory but I feel justified after spending this amount of money on a vehicle only to have more problems than I started with.

I think if you were reasonable you would not expect this sort of behavior from your mechanic. No one on the planet should.

Can you please have the dealer owner look into this and respond. I only expect a just course of action and I am very sad to say this but if I do not get a reasonable response from Audi then I must protect other consumers from this dealer and take further action with the AA and MIOSA.