This is horrendous! After this recurrence do not accept anything other than a full replacement at no cost to yourselves.
Fingers crossed for you.
Fingers crossed for you.
Facelift S3 Brakes slam on when driving
- Thread starter sve170
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Update on tonight issues: AA man arrived and after a couple of minutes managed to release the ‘locked’ brake pedal, he had to put a lot of pressure onto the pedal while using the drivers seat as a brace.
Once the pedal released we were able to start the engine.
Presently waiting for AA recovery truck to transport the S3 back to our dealer, boy is the manager in for a shock in the morning. The car will be rejected, Audi UK will also be informed as well.
Will post further details tomorrow at some point.
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Once the pedal released we were able to start the engine.
Presently waiting for AA recovery truck to transport the S3 back to our dealer, boy is the manager in for a shock in the morning. The car will be rejected, Audi UK will also be informed as well.
Will post further details tomorrow at some point.
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Some people want to reject cars for relatively trivial reasons.......however this to me would leave me with zero confidence in the product and without doubt is an accident waiting to happen so get it done and good luck. I would be extremely concerned as Audi must have previously thought they were fixing the problem when they replaced bits, they clearly haven't which also suggests they have no idea what the problem is.
Very odd symptom, only similar (ish) experience I ever had of a flat pedal was when there was no fluid in the clutch lines so clutch peddle would remain on the floor.
Good luck, you would hope in this case they should easily see the right thing to do.
Very odd symptom, only similar (ish) experience I ever had of a flat pedal was when there was no fluid in the clutch lines so clutch peddle would remain on the floor.
Good luck, you would hope in this case they should easily see the right thing to do.
This is awful, the more posts I read like this the more I think that Audi are losing that special touch. They don't seem to know their own cars and the way they deal with faults is appalling! There's been plenty of members on here with A3 issues and I rarely read of a 100% positive experience. Hopefully you get this sorted mate 
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This is awful, the more posts I read like this the more I think that Audi are losing that special touch. They don't seem to know their own cars and the way they deal with faults is appalling! There's been plenty of members on here with A3 issues and I rarely read of a 100% positive experience. Hopefully you get this sorted mate
Seems to be the way now, if they don't see a fault when they plug it in they don't seem to know what to do.
In 2012 I bought a new TT with a DSG gearbox. At random times the clutch would disengage without warning and the only way to get the clutch to re-engage was to stop, turn the engine off and then restart it. This was dangerous especially if you were overtaking on a motorway our halfway round a roundabout or crossing a junction. The upshot is that Audi could not find a fault logged in the ECU. They then asked me to leave the car with them so that the service manager could see if he could replicate the fault. They had the car for a few days when I received a phone call telling me that they had ordered me a new car, which I was very happy with as I had only had the car a few months. I later found out that the service manager was on his way home when the fault occurred again and nearly killed him.
I will be updating this post soon, but for now the S3 is back with local dealer, their main Technician has been carrying out further tests on the car but nothing found.
We have discussed rejection of the car, but that’s all no detail for now. Audi UK in Milton Keynes are also aware of the failure occurring again. The Audi Technician who travelled to our dealer from Milton Keynes to assist with the fault finding was a Level 2, the highest grade, so Audi Germany will be involved now, I don’t have info if they will send a Level 3 Technician to the UK. It was discussed also that the car may have to be transported to Milton Keynes so that Audi can work on the car in their own workshops. Over the coming week more discussions will take place with our dealer on a way forward including possible rejection.
On top of all this our Service manager at our dealer has been terrific, he has been very helpful and truly gutted that the car failed a 2nd time, he also gave my daughter another loan car, she already had a lovely A5 saloon with loads of power, this time they delivered a brand new Q5 with Quattro only 100mls on the clock. So keep watching the post for more developments.
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I must say I admire your patience with Audi, especially as the consequences of the fault with the vehicle could be fatal for your family or other road users. We are not talking about a minor issue here, as I said it could be catastrophic. From a personal point of view I would not have any faith in a repair, this already being tried. I would be worried that the fault could re occur at anytime and not only endanger my loved ones but would distract from my enjoyment of the vehicle, therefore I would reject the vehicle now.
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Easy for me to say but the way they're handling it seems very good at least, doesn't make the situation any better for you and your daughter but at least they're looking after you all. Hopefully you'll get a satisfactory outcome, they're cracking cars when they work as they should.
Think really they should be looking to get you in a replacement if they're struggling to find out what's causing it, as said above - it could have a very bad outcome if it happens again after being 'fixed'
Hi all, the issue is still ongoing, but right out of the blue Audi UK decided to take the car back from us, we had spoken to dealer about rejecting the S3 but that was all, no other discussions.
The S3 is still at local dealer and we suspect it is going to be transported to Audi UK HQ in Milton Keynes for further investigation.
We are presently trying to source another S3 of the same spec as we had, we put quite a lot of optional extras on it. But there are no 3 door S3’s available in UK with anywhere near our spec or colour.
We are in discussion with our sales manager at our local dealer and Audi UK but it is not going well, sales manager not interested, Audi UK were very good but seem to going off the boil and are starting to be very awkward.
So the saga continues and I will keep the post updated where possible.
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Stick with it mate and don't let them wear you down.
They have caused the issue and need to resolve it too.
Hope you get something sorted soon.
Absolutely and it’s one of our options, but for now we are being as diplomatic as possible however over the weekend I feel it will all come to a head.
Originally during the initial fault investigation it was the service manager dealing with us, a terrific bloke and was so helpful to us, but as Audi have now recalled our S3 we are dealing with the new car sales manager. It’s not going well, he is not interested, I have a gut feeling that we are a nuisance to him, also he is not the most enthusiastic person I have ever met either.
This weekend may force us to go on social media and I will have no hesitation in naming and shaming our dealer, the sales manager and the Audi UK employees who are involved as well.
Wish us luck it’s getting very interesting.
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Flying Scotsman
Registered User
No, you are not a nuisance to the sales manager. He is not doing his job as far a I can tell from your posts. You have been diplomatic and patient, but this a but and a big but, Audi have failed to find the cause of the problem, even with their techs over a reasonable time frame. The car is not safe to drive and either they replace it with a new similar spec car they have on a forecourt somewhere or a factory built one with a replacement vehicle that you agree to whilst it is being built or at last resort they give your money back, if purchased or absolve you of all financial agreements.
There are people who try to reject cars for frivolous reasons or are not willing to give the dealer or the manufacturer time to resolve issues. You do not fit this mould.
There are people who try to reject cars for frivolous reasons or are not willing to give the dealer or the manufacturer time to resolve issues. You do not fit this mould.
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s3marc
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Since you cannot find an S3 3-door with the same or better spec and Audi are no longer taking orders for new 3 door S3 , can you not push them for an RS3 as a replacement - seems very reasonable to me. You could of caused a lot of adverse publicity for Audi if you decided to go to the Press or Watchdog or similar - but you have been very patient and trusted in Audi to do the right thing. I am sure your daughter would be happy with an RS3 as a replacement
Since you cannot find an S3 3-door with the same or better spec and Audi are no longer taking orders for new 3 door S3 , can you not push them for an RS3 as a replacement - seems very reasonable to me. You could of caused a lot of adverse publicity for Audi if you decided to go to the Press or Watchdog or similar - but you have been very patient and trusted in Audi to do the right thing. I am sure your daughter would be happy with an RS3 as a replacement
s3marc
Good idea but a new RS3 will cost us about another £15000 over the cost of the S3 so not an option.
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No, there was no noise from the car, normal driving at the time and in a split second and for no reason the brakes slammed on, imagine you doing an emergency stop for whatever reason, at least you were the person controlling the stop, in our case we had no control, it was the that decided to do the emergency stop.
Could have been a lot worse if my daughter had been on a dual carriageway or motorway doing 70mph. The consequences could have been tragic with a high speed rear end multiple car collision.
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Another update: just to let all on the forum know that after 10 agonising and stressful weeks we have a conclusion to our safety issue on our 4month old S3.
I will post a very detailed update in due course, it will shock this forum regarding the treatment we have received from Audi UK headquarters in Milton Keynes.
But for now we are waiting the arrival of a brand new 3dr S3 which is just off the boat from Germany to be delivered to our local Audi dealer.
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I will post a very detailed update in due course, it will shock this forum regarding the treatment we have received from Audi UK headquarters in Milton Keynes.
But for now we are waiting the arrival of a brand new 3dr S3 which is just off the boat from Germany to be delivered to our local Audi dealer.
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Glad to hear you've got a positive outcome at least, look forward to reading your write up.
Glad there’s light at the end of the tunnel mate, with new car on its way.
Interested to here your detailed update on this one!
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Interested to here your detailed update on this one!
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Flying Scotsman
Registered User
Actually 10 weeks is a reasonable time, not great, from initial issue for Audi to reject and furnish you with a new car. I presume you were loaned a vehicle that was acceptable to you during this debacle?
There are dealerships and dealerships. Some just wash their hands and say it is the manufacture's problem now, and others go to bat for you to fully and correctly state the issue and efforts to resolve it to the manufacturer. In order that the manufacturer has a clear understanding of the problem.
There are dealerships and dealerships. Some just wash their hands and say it is the manufacture's problem now, and others go to bat for you to fully and correctly state the issue and efforts to resolve it to the manufacturer. In order that the manufacturer has a clear understanding of the problem.
I think that nobody had any excuse in this case and that A replacement car should have been offered immediately. Waiting 10 weeks for a decision is completely unacceptable.
Thankfully no-one was injured. I would be keen to know if this car is getting crushed or just sold on?
Following these latest comments:
My dealer has turned out to have been excellent, in the last couple of weeks I had my doubts he was not working for us, he was working for us but at the time I really had my doubts. As for Audi UK, different story, for the time being I need the new S3 in our possession.
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My dealer has turned out to have been excellent, in the last couple of weeks I had my doubts he was not working for us, he was working for us but at the time I really had my doubts. As for Audi UK, different story, for the time being I need the new S3 in our possession.
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Have Audi identified the cause of the problem? It would worry me if they still don't know, there could be other A3s driving around with the same fault.
My understanding is that cruise control slowing the car down does not affect the position of the brake pedal.
But whether or not the car is a liability, an incident could prove to be fatal. It's now at the point where you MUST reject the car and flatly refuse to ever drive it again.
But as you no longer have the car gladly that's not an issue for you. I think you've been amazingly patient.
Me? I'd want my money back with interest.
But whether or not the car is a liability, an incident could prove to be fatal. It's now at the point where you MUST reject the car and flatly refuse to ever drive it again.
But as you no longer have the car gladly that's not an issue for you. I think you've been amazingly patient.
Me? I'd want my money back with interest.
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Audi have NOT identified the cause of the problem.
Following the initial occurrence our dealer spent many hours and days fault finding but to no avail.
They then asked for technical assistance from Audi UK, and believe it or not it took them four weeks before one of Audi’s master technicians was sent to our dealer.
He spent approx 5hrs assisting with fault finding and carrying out test drives, no fault could be found.
As nothing was found he concluded the only component that could cause the occurrence was the ABS unit in the car.
This was totally replaced with a new unit, coded to our S3 and test driven.
The car was then given the all clear to return to us the owners.
Exactly 7 days later it happened again, but this time the brakes did not ‘slam on’ the car had been driven that day, then parked up for approx ten minutes in a car park. On returning to the car it would not start, message on Virtual Cockpit said vehicle needs to be in ‘ Park’ before engine can be started.
The S-Tronic is already in Park.
We then noticed that the brake pedal was solid and stuck hard down to the floor. We could not move it.
This is exactly what happened 5 weeks earlier following the brakes slamming on when it was being driven.
We had to call Audi Assist to come and recover the car again and return it to dealer for further investigation.
Once again no faults were found, no fault codes were registered.
Audi UK were informed again that it had happened again.
Approx a week later Audi UK contacted our dealer to inform them that no one was to ever drive the car again, and that they were taking the from us.
Since then there has been a lot of dialogue between us, our dealer and Audi, it has been torture, but finally we have a new S3 arriving in the next few days.
From your initial question you are correct, how many other FL A3/S3’s have the potential for this to occur on their new car.
Maybe Audi have informed all service departments to look out for and vehicles coming in with the same fault.
I would certainly hope they have but to be honest following 10 weeks of torture I suspect this has not happened.
So if anyone on this forum and any others come across this type of fault please inform everyone, this fault has the potential to cause fatalities should it happen on a dual carriageway or motorway when we are driving at high speeds.
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Hi all,
Apologies for not following up sooner with my daughters FL S3 auto braking issue but my mum passed away on 1st Jan 2018 following a short illness and as you can imagine I have had other priorities.
Below is a very brief note on where we have got to.
The whole saga has finally come to an end, and my daughter picked up her brand new fully loaded FL S3 a few weeks back.
Even right up until the final couple of hours Audi UK were not playing ball with us and I do believe if it had not been for my sales manager at local Audi branch and a sales manager at another Audi dealership we would not have got the car.
So for now it’s all good and daughter is driving her 2nd new S3 in 6 months.
Once I get a chance I will post a full detailed report of the problems we encountered.
The hassle we got from Audi UK and in particular two employees (who I will name later) in their executive office in Milton Keynes was incredible and totally unacceptable.
But for now the saga is over but with a really horrible taste in my mouth regarding Audi UK.
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Apologies for not following up sooner with my daughters FL S3 auto braking issue but my mum passed away on 1st Jan 2018 following a short illness and as you can imagine I have had other priorities.
Below is a very brief note on where we have got to.
The whole saga has finally come to an end, and my daughter picked up her brand new fully loaded FL S3 a few weeks back.
Even right up until the final couple of hours Audi UK were not playing ball with us and I do believe if it had not been for my sales manager at local Audi branch and a sales manager at another Audi dealership we would not have got the car.
So for now it’s all good and daughter is driving her 2nd new S3 in 6 months.
Once I get a chance I will post a full detailed report of the problems we encountered.
The hassle we got from Audi UK and in particular two employees (who I will name later) in their executive office in Milton Keynes was incredible and totally unacceptable.
But for now the saga is over but with a really horrible taste in my mouth regarding Audi UK.
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Sorry for your loss and glad you finally got the car replaced.
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Funny, I was just about to find this thread to see if there was an update and you made a post
Sorry to hear about your mum
Good to hear that its finally sorted and looking forward to the full write up as Audi seem to have been worse than shocking!
Sorry to hear about your mum
Good to hear that its finally sorted and looking forward to the full write up as Audi seem to have been worse than shocking!
ACWKGYTO
Registered User
Firstly sorry to hear about your daughters S3 and glad to hear there wasnt an accident relating to the brake pedal.
Sorry to hear about your loss. Never a good time and Im sure you were stressed already !
Audi UK have always been pretty useless Im sorry to say, they really do suck. They pretend to help but never do !
Im not exactly sure what their customer care team actually do because they arent there to help us owners.
Sorry to hear about your loss. Never a good time and Im sure you were stressed already !
Audi UK have always been pretty useless Im sorry to say, they really do suck. They pretend to help but never do !
Im not exactly sure what their customer care team actually do because they arent there to help us owners.
Unbelievable when i read this entire thread cant belive the hassle etc you have been put thru, sorry to hear of the loss in your family aswell. seems bad things always come at once ! Glad your at the end of it now mate regards to you and your family.
Hoping your daughters new S3 has been issue free!
Look forward to a full write up still if you get round to it =)
Look forward to a full write up still if you get round to it =)
First of all apologies to everyone waiting for the final update on this thread.
To be honest I have just not had the time to put the full outcome onto the forum, with Xmas, New Year and my mum passing away on New Year’s Day it has been hectic but also very sad at losing the rock in our family, and to top it all off my company sent me off to work in Kazakhstan with only 48hrs notice.
So please bear with me, I will at some point post all the details, it will be very interesting to all members as to how local Audi dealers, Audi UK and Audi UK master technicians operate, also the terrible treatment we received from the Audi UK Excutive staff in Milton Keynes. There were two people in particular who tried do do everything in their power to stop my daughter receiving a new S3.
They were quite happy for her to take her new S3 away and carry on driving it, even though it failed twice in a period of 7 days.
Only the intervention from the Service Manager at our local Audi dealer who impounded the car at our dealer and basically stopped anyone from driving it, even at that point Audi UK still did not understand the seriousness of the fault.
sve170
To be honest I have just not had the time to put the full outcome onto the forum, with Xmas, New Year and my mum passing away on New Year’s Day it has been hectic but also very sad at losing the rock in our family, and to top it all off my company sent me off to work in Kazakhstan with only 48hrs notice.
So please bear with me, I will at some point post all the details, it will be very interesting to all members as to how local Audi dealers, Audi UK and Audi UK master technicians operate, also the terrible treatment we received from the Audi UK Excutive staff in Milton Keynes. There were two people in particular who tried do do everything in their power to stop my daughter receiving a new S3.
They were quite happy for her to take her new S3 away and carry on driving it, even though it failed twice in a period of 7 days.
Only the intervention from the Service Manager at our local Audi dealer who impounded the car at our dealer and basically stopped anyone from driving it, even at that point Audi UK still did not understand the seriousness of the fault.
sve170
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