Purchased a 2013 A8 from Audi. The car current mileage is 40,000 and is well maintained by Audi. A few months ago, the car started chugging and lost power while exiting off a busy highway. The vehicle stalled immediately. My safety and the safety of others were jeopardized. The vehicle was inspected by Audi and the issue was Turbo charger failure, cost $10,000. This is a known manufacture problem and Audi of America has failed to acknowledge or recall this vehicle. I have notified the NHTSA due to this safety issue and will continue to make complaints on all platforms until something is done before a fatality occurs. A class -action law suit seems warranted.
Good luck with that. Many people that claim “well maintained” did not maintain their vehicles correctly.
5 Likes
A new turbo will fix issue? That’s a theory. I know a turbo alone is not $10k. What else do they want to replace?
Based on the vehicle’s age and its very low odometer mileage, it appears that it was driven only ~5k miles per year.
Was the oil changed on the basis of elapsed time, rather than on the basis of odometer mileage?
If not, those overly-extended oil change intervals probably led to lubrication problems that killed the turbo unit.
And, because that would be considered “neglect”, no vehicle mfr would come to your assistance.
5 Likes
I have a hard time accepting that replacing a turbocharger, even on an Audi, costs $10,000. Not saying you’re lying…but that just seems like a really inflated price.
I’d expect to pay $10K for an entire engine to be replaced.
My understanding is most turbos fail due to lack of oil changes, or using the wrong type of oil. Personally I’d chalk this up to “stuff happens”, and either get the car fixed at somewhere other than the dealer, or get rid of the car.
Good luck.
5 Likes
FWIW, I doubt the part is $10k. I imagine most of that cost is labor…probably expensive labor at an Audi dealer.
1 Like
So, an 8 year old car which had a 4 year warranty.
Turbos die. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but especially if they’re abused via lack of oil changes or overheating, they’ll conk out on you from time to time. Even well-maintained and gently-treated turbos can die.
No car lasts forever. No car part lasts forever. The manufacturer only guarantees the car and its parts will last as long as the warranty lasts. Your car is twice as old as the manufacturer was willing to say it would last. That means your situation is unfortunate, but it’s not Audi’s fault. I know you’re mad, but if you try to start a class action lawsuit, the mass tort lawyers will laugh you out of the room before the judge has the chance to.
You are learning why used high-end luxury cars are so cheap. People who can afford to maintain them can also afford a newer luxury car, so they don’t want them. People who can’t afford to maintain them either know how much it costs to keep them on the road and avoid them like the plague (that would be most of us here on this board) or do not know how much it costs to keep them on the road, and get a nasty surprise later (that, unfortunately, would be you). But hey, it’s the kind of mistake you usually only make once!
Had a friend back in the day with an S5 who had to pay 5 grand to replace his, and that was in early 2000’s dollars. Wouldn’t terribly shock me if it was 10k (including labor), especially right now when seemingly everything is hard to get hold of due to supply chain problems.
2 Likes
… and it was apparently bought as a used car.
Purchasers of used cars rarely get to see maintenance records from the previous owner(s), and as a result, the buyer frequently winds-up purchasing a car that is purported to have been well-maintained, but that was not properly maintained.
2 Likes
The exception is when the car was maintained by the dealership. They’ll sometimes pull the maintenance records and supply them to the new buyer to prove it’s been maintained well.
The trouble is that you can get the oil changed right on schedule every time, but if you drive it like you stole it and overheat the turbos, you should change it more often. And there’s no way for the next buyer to know that happened.
4 Likes
But, unless someone sits down for an extended period of time in order to compare maintenance records with the mfr’s maintenance schedule, simply being handed a sheaf of maintenance records can be essentially meaningless. As we have seen far too many times in this forum, a LOT of people seem to be unable to mentally process the either miles/or months–whichever comes first–maintenance schedule.
They seem to be able to comprehend X miles, but they seem to completely overlook/ignore/not comprehend the fact that cars driven very few miles per year need to have their oil changed at least once per year, even if the number of odometer miles doesn’t match what is stated in the mfr’s maintenance schedule.
I think that this was a likely case of a turbo unit being killed by having the oil changed on the basis of odometer mileage, instead of on the basis of elapsed time. Can the OP provide information that disproves my theory?
1 Like
And remember, the A8 is the top-of-the-line Audi, VERY expensive to repair. No surprise to me it was $10,000.
2 Likes
Have you gotten other repair diagnoses and repair estimates? If not, get at least 2 more. The Audi diagnosis is likely correct since 16 complaints for engine failure at safercar.gov are turbo failures. I did notice that another person at the NHTSA website had a quote of $13,800.
1 Like
Looks like retail on the manifolds including turbochargers for both sides is a little under $4,000 from Audi, An estimate from an independent shop wouldn’t be a bad idea.
1 Like
OP, besides the good comments above, try Googling this tsb number, might be of some help:
21 20 36 2044640/9
1 Like
The 2013 A8 with the V6 has a single turbo.
The V8 has twin turbos.
The regular Audi A8 has a choice of either the 3.0-liter turbocharged V-6 with 335 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque, a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 with 453 hp and 487 lb-ft, and a hybridized version of the 3.0-liter with a combined 443 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque.
Tester
1 Like
From the TSB listed above:
Non-compliance with service intervals.
2 Likes
If it has a turbocharger it is the twin-turbo V8, the V6 had a supercharger that year.
The fuel pumps are easy to reach, I’ll bet the turbochargers require a lot of labor to replace. Those who buy $100,000 cars can afford it.
3 Likes
Not really because many people buy more vehicle or homes than they can really afford . If an expensive repair is needed then the whole house of cards falls down.
2 Likes
The minute a repair bill comes due everyone wants to blame the car maker and file a class action while always throwing in the “could have been killed” equation.
Turbocharger failure is almost always caused by the owner.
Superchargers have oil in them and now and then it does not hurt to check that oil. Engines can use oil; so can superchargers at any time.
Eight year old used car so you take your chances. It’s no different than buying a used fridge or lawn mower at a yard sale.
Much like the lady who has owned 3 Subarus and says this sorry company builds cars which have their front bumpers fall off of. All three of hers so says she…
She says while out every Subaru she sees has a front bumper held on with “duck tape (sic) and staples”.
She also wants a class action suit… 
1 Like
Understandably upset at a high repair bill but forget the safety issue. Cars stall all the time on the highway. Sometimes at inconvenient places. Best is to be able to coast to the side of the road. But it’s not a safety issue in the sense of a fire or brake failure. Rather than going down that path with Audi, try to find a cheaper alternative.
3 Likes