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1) Noisy door/window seals when weather dry" - have they not attempted to fix this at all?
2) " fuel consumption not as good as it was and also misses a beat when idleing" - was this put down to the plugs or have they attempted to fix it?
3) £320 - was this the service charge or did you have anything else done, seems a lot to me. Did you have the brake fluid changed at the same time?
4) "this is a common fault with the FSI engine sir" - what is the fault - dirty plugs???? Audi Uk customer services told me there is no harm using normal unleaded! I quote their reply :
"For the best performance of this model, 98 RON rated fuel is recommended. 95 RON or 97 RON can be used but it is possible that you will experience a loss of performance but no damage will be caused to the car by regularly filling up with lower grade fuels. There will also be no harm caused by mixing the grades of fuel in one tank.
With regard to your concerns about the exhaust valve seats, I can confirm that it is not possible to cause engine damage by using lower grade fuels. Audi would not advise of their acceptability of 95 RON fuel if this were the case. "
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1/ They lubricated the seals, they were actually quiet for the month or so before the service, and squeeky after the service.
2/ They NEVER attempted to fix the miss or poorer fuel consumption, just said "no faults stored nad block readings OK" I took the plugs out myself the following day and found them quite "lumpy" with whiteish carbon, on one the carbon virtually spanning the gap from the centre electrode from the outer one, they're odd plugs, look like a normal Platinum but have three electrodes, two of which are quite far away from the centre one and I'm not sure why? does'nt look as if it is designed to spark to these outer two, most odd, maybe something to do with the "FSI" burning? I have never seen anything like it before on bikes, race cars etc, including a Ferrari F40LM, and numerous full factory Porsche 911GT2 race cars that I used to engineer.
3/ Yep, they also changed the brake fluid, would have done that myself except I was unsure if I needed it to be plugged in to the Audi computer for any of the brake assist/traction/ type stuff.
4/ They reckon they have been told it's common on FSI's when used with cheaper petrol (the wife doesn't understand the added cost of Optimax is reflected in MPG) it's all to do with Sulphur content according to them, not sure if sulpher is high or low with Optimax, Told me to put the plugs in, run two tankfulls of Optimax then return the car for another set of plugs? Personally I wonder what the highish oil consumption when the engine is running in does to the engine/ plugs/ lambda sensors, I know for a fact Lambda's do not like oil.
I was also p****d off that they used Shell Helix oil, I have probably 3 litres remaining of Castrol SLX sitting in the garage from when it was using oil, they reckon they will mix but I don't like doing that
They are ordering the rear shocks and say they will have another look at the door/window seals,