Charlie Ford
Registered User
WARNING: This starts off as a rant about the car i just purchased but turns out i do LOVE my audi A3Well i recently bought a 53 plate audi a3 2.0 TDI and i have to say so far my thoughts have not been the best.i purchased the car about 3 months ago from a "private trader". The day i purchased the car was the day i noticed my first problem, as i was driving up the motorway i noticed that as soon as the car got to about 82mph that i lost all boost and the car went in to limp mode. from here i did the usual things i.e contact eh seller stating that i wasa not happy that i had just purchased a car and now it was not working correctly and that the engine light had come on and i had lost all boost(boost returned after stopping turning the engine off and re-starting).this happened a few more timmes on the way home.As i was closer to home than i was to the sellers i decided to get the car home and call the AA out for fault diagnosis. The AA plugged in to the car and the only fault apparrent was a "Turbo Overboost Caution" The AA mechanic then reset the code the followed me home.(i was at my uncles when i called the AA out).The next morning i started the car up and everything seemed fine i drove to work to collect some stuff then came home (4 mile round trip no faults noticed), after leaving the car outside on idle while i grabbed a few things from indoors the car started to produce a "james bond" smoke screen. thus another call to the AA. the mechanic had a look over the car and guess the head gasket could have gone. So he towed me to a local garage where i left them the car to figure out what the problem was. They ran a few quick tests (sniff test, vacuum test) and nothing seemed wrong apart from a strong smell of unburnt diesel from the exhuast. so they took the EGR and Cylinder Head off and sent them for pressure testing. It came about that the head was cracked on port No2 (porous head, Common audi issue??)so after abuit of ebay searching i found a garage that would replace the head and all ancilleries (cam belt, water pump ...) for less than £1500 (audi approved garage with 2 years warranty) while he had the car in he had to change a few other things as the previous garage had damaged a few things while removing the head.(heater plugs, a wireing harness and a sensor) all in all it came to £1960 Vat incl.I thought that was going to be and end to the issue as the turbo caused me no issues on the way home ( i had informed the garage that their was something wrong with it and if they could look at it while they had it in, they said after the work the test drove the car and there was no loss of power or turbo cut-out). but fast forward a month and we have a new issue arisen. The car alarm started to go off on its ownn accord anytime of day. especially in the middle of the night. after some investigation by myself it seemed to be that the boot sensor was sending a sgnle that the boot was open even though it was closed and locked. so i googled around and found a thread on here about the rear wiper motor pipes coming disconnected and shorting out the boot locking mechanism and setting the alarm off.So i took the car to Audi and had them look into the fault.(I quoted what i had learned from here) and they confirmed what i suspected (well kind of) it was the rear wiper motor but it was not the pipes the actual motor itself was leaking fluid down within the rear tailgate and shorting out the boot locking mechanism) so after about £80 for diagnostics they have quoted me £277 for a new rear motor, new boot locking mechanism and a wireing harness within the boot incl fitting. so with travelling, paying for storage and removal of the car it has nearly cost me double what i initially payed for the car.next audi i buy will be from a dealer so its audi approved and all faults checked.Well rant over thanks for reading (if you got this far)Now to the nice things i have to say about the car.i love the car the way it drives and the way it handles. Their is alot more power in this car than any i have previously owned and the looks speak for themself Audi's are beautiful motors its just a shame my first purchase has caused me to doubt them.i love the Bose sound system within the car (subs seem to not work?? well i cant hear any added bass). i love the self leveling zenon headlights, to be honest i love the car all over apart from the faults i have had.Also the Audi customer service is brilliant. they kept me watered (coffee,tea,cans of coke) and gave my wifi access for my ipad while i was waiting in the dealers while they had my car.lalso the free clean and wash they did on the car before i got it back was a nice after touch.(not the best clean its had but hey its free!)well now the car is running (apart from tubo issues!) i have though about starting the mods. what would anyone suggest?? i am unsure what p state the car is but here is a picture so someone can tell me
massive pain in the ****... they seem to like to break hope ur turbo isnt on it way out.
