Service from main dealers is getting worse and worse....

Background to this is that i have bought 4 new Audis over the past 10 years or so, 2 A5 sport backs and then an Etron 50 and finally a 55. The first 3 cars were bought from Audi South Dublin, the last one (and most expensive) i ended up going to Audi wexford because Audi South Dublin appeared not to be bothered selling a 95k car to me and couldnt return phone calls. In fairness Audi Wexford were very good and very responsive.

Fast forward 2 years and the 55 is in for its first check up, all pretty routine but two things i asked them to check

a) a piece of external trim around the wheel arch wasnt sitting flush (and hasnt been for a long time), they agreed it didnt look like there was any fault on my side or any impact but they needed to get approval from Audi to replace it under warranty. It took me 3 weeks of unanswered phone calls and a complaint to the head of audi ireland about how useless these lads were to get a call back to let me know that the claim had been rejected as it was body work and that someone had left me a voicemail 2 weeks previously (they had not)

b) the power assisted boot lid groans a bit, i assumed it just needed to be lubricated but apparently its a bigger job and the car needed to be booked in for 'diagnostics'. Told them id need a loan car so they booked it in for 3 weeks later and said a loaner would be available (as it was in for warranty work).

Wife arrives up this morning and its a manual a3, she hasnt driven a manual in about 15 years so she told them to arrange something automatic and call us back. That will be another few weeks.

Ultimately the boot thing is an annoyance rather than anything else so it can wait but surely they should be using these interactions to encourage customers to buy new models they have in (equivalent to what they have already bought) and try arrange a loaner of one of these. Ultimately if it had been an auto a3 that would have been fine, and in fairness i didnt specify when booking the car in, but if there was any kind of joined up thinking up there surely someone should go, eh we have massively overprice the new Q6 etron, they arent selling that well, maybe one of the idiots who massively overpaid for a q8 could be duped into something new and shiney if we let him test it for a few days 😂 (spoiler alert i wont be but they dont know that). Maybe i am expecting too much but it just seems like common sense to me.

I am giving strong consideration to buying a model Y next and be done 'premium german customer service'. It doesnt exist (in fairness Gumbo has been banging this drum for some time as have others) and whatever was there is getting worse and worse.