I purchased a pre-owned pre-certified 2011 Audi A3 with 7865 miles from the dealer on 5/22/2011. Last week, coincidentally 5/23/2012, I noticed a significant leak on the side of the garage where I park my car. I immediately took it to the dealership service department for service and repair.
The leak is transmission fluid. I am told there was a flaw in the casting of the transmission and this is the cause of the leak. A new transmission has been ordered to replace the flawed transmission. Thankfully, all repairs are covered by the warranty.
This is a significant repair and I am concern it will devalue the car. What do you think I should be concerned about regarding this diagnosis and what steps do you recommend I take with the dealership to ensure that i am protected in the case the car continues to have mechanical problems?
Replacing the transmission should completely solve the problem. I wouldn’t have further concerns about it. Just keep up with all recommended services, you should be fine.
The repair is covered by the warranty. No issue in terms of value of car. Read your warranty carefully, but this sounds like the dealer is handling the problem appropriately. If you keep having mechanical problems with the car you might consider selling or trading it at the point the warranty coverage ends.
Audi’s are expensive cars to own and repair. That is part of Audi ownership experience. Lots of satisfied owners, but those who purchased used Audi’s with a lot of years and miles need to be prepared for some major repair bills and no warranty to cover them.
I wouldn’t worry about devaluing the car. In fact, it’s probably worth a bit more, as the new transmission will have less miles and it may contain some minor fixes for glitches found in ones built earlier.
Thank you for your insight and comments. My husband believes I am over reacting. I want to make sure we’ve been smart in handling this with the dealer. Especially, if the car continues to have problems and I want to get full trade in value in the future.
The car currently has 17,000. The 35% of the 9K plus miles I have put on the car are highways miles. I travel for my work so the car is garaged an average of 10 days out of the months. I average 15 miles a days when I do drive it.
We also own a late model A5 Quattro and my previous 2 cars were BMW 3 series. These cars are our new experiences with Audi. Because I have never had any major problems with other cars in this class it worries me to have a transmission replaced with a late model car with few miles.
Any car can have problems. Just keep records of the repairs you have - put all your repair receipts in a binder. If you need to see how many times a certain repair was done, you have the records to do it. We had a transmission replaced under warranty at 58,000 miles and at 128,000 miles, the transmission is still preforming well.
I will add to the great advice you just got. Make sure you have the trans fluid and fillter changed every 30000 miles and the trans will last a long time.