(Final Nov 17 update below)
(See second update in bottom of first post)
(See update in bottom of first post)
So my 2013 TT-RS is now sitting in the lot of the tow company after spinning out of control last night—the rear wheels still immobile.
I was driving on I-64 east of Richmond VA last night when I suddenly felt the car shudder then the vehicle began gliding over the lane markers to the right. I tried to keep the wheels straight and slow down gradually but the rear end slowly kicked out to the left side. By the time I knew it I was directly facing the right-side guard rail and moments later the vehicle tapped the guard rail just enough to bust the driver’s side and peel back the hood a few notches.
The vehicle came to a rest after doing a near-180 degree turn and ended up facing oncoming traffic. I am so thankful that immediately after impact the car was sitting mostly on the shoulder. The engine was still running perfectly fine with no dash warning lights so I tried to move it in 1st gear, 2nd gear, and reverse, but the car would not budge! I then dialed 911 and evacuated my girlfriend and I from the car.
State troopers arrived shortly after and we tried pushing the car in neutral but the vehicle would not move an inch. The wrecker arrived and the tow guy had to WD-40 the roadway to slide the rear tires onto the flat bed.
I checked the dash right after I felt the car shudder and I had no warnings of any system failure. After the car came to a rest, no dash lights came on either. Thankfully impact was not even enough to deploy airbags.
The state trooper’s report says that the incident was not due to driver’s error and I am convinced that a failure onboard the vehicle occurred that caused this incident. The car has been meticulously maintained. It has received every required service at the Audi dealership in El Paso TX (where I am from) and it was garaged much of its life. It is nearly new with just 13,000 miles!
I have already filed an insurance claim and contacted Audi of America to raise some attention so as to look further into what happened.
Any input you can give me as to what might have happened or what I should do next is greatly appreciated.
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SEPTEMBER 8 2018 UPDATE
Up until yesterday I had not seen the car since July 6th. The vehicle went to the tower's wreckage yard for a few days to allow an adjuster to assess the damages. The adjuster quoted the damages at $8,000. Car is towed to a body shop that works closely with Audi Richmond. Vehicle front-end is dismantled and discovers further damage--ends up near $13,000 of damage to the vehicle.
Body shop claims as soon as the vehicle arrived at their facility, the car was mobile and nothing was wrong with the rear wheels. VWAG's Certified Fraud Expert Manny Le Coz agrees to pay for the inspection as a "one time goodwill gesture". I am then told that Audi Richmond's techs could not find anything wrong with the vehicle. Manny Le Coz gets back to me and states the following:
As anyone trying to protect their company would do, he is pawning off my issue on other small details. Well, as I begin to accept my defeat, I pay out my insurance deductible, then after two months I finally picked up the car from the West Broad Collision Center yesterday (September 7th, 2018). As soon as I begin to let the clutch out, I begin feeling resistance in the vehicle's motion. As I begin to accelerate out of the parking lot, I begin hearing some sounds but discount them as just a component of the shi*ty parking lot. I get out onto the main street and slowly my suspicion begins creeping back. Sure enough as I am accelerating out, I hear a GRINDING noise coming from the center tunnel and rear end. I drove the car straight back to the dealership (thankfully is only a few miles down the road) and let them have a piece of my mind. I called back Audi Corporate and left a message with VWAG's Manny Le Coz to let them know that they've officially done NOTHING for me. I plan to stir the shi* up as much as I can because I am prepared to part ways with the car.
tl;dr--no one at the body shop or the dealership found anything to be wrong with the car and as soon as I get it back, I hear GRINDING from the rear end. I am beyond pissed and ready to tear someone a new assh0le. Left the car at Audi Richmond and now waiting to call more folks up Monday to stir up the sh*t.
OCTOBER 27 2018 UPDATE
So I have gone through a lot in the past month and a half since having picked up the car from the body shop and dropped it off at Audi Richmond that same day. After having dropped off the vehicle at the dealership immediately after picking it up at the body shop, I left a message with Manny Le Coz of VWoA and followed up by writing him a letter to declare my case. Thankfully, he began to come around. He called me up later that week and told me they had decided to send an engineer from VW/Audi to the dealership, where my car was, to further investigate the problem. Manny Le Coz of VWoA came through and the engineer arrived at Audi Richmond the following week. The engineer spent an entire day inspecting the car (behind closed doors, of course) and returned to his team with his observations.
The most significant details the engineer came to find was that my Haldex unit was over-filled and my rear differential was BONE DRY. He found that the drain bolt from my rear differential had been tampered with (meaning it different position than it was when the vehicle left the factory) insinuating that it was drained, but the bolt to my rear differential's fill hole had not been touched. And seeing as my Haldex unit was over-filled, they drew the conclusion that someone drained the differential and over-filled the Haldex unit. After Manny Le Coz delivered the news, and seeing as no one besides the Audi dealership in El Paso TX had touched the driveline of the vehicle during its annual service, a technician from Audi El Paso may have improperly performed my 35,000-mile service by draining my differential and over-filling my Haldex unit.
Unfortunately, the negative result of the improper service didn't surface for 5,000 miles of driving over 16 months. To top it all off, the dealership in El Paso TX changed ownership recently and they no longer had any records of my service, but me having saved those service records helped to prove the service was claimed to have been performed correctly. Because the change of ownership, I was having a difficult time tracking down who I could hold responsible for this mess.
A few days after hearing the results of the VW/Audi investigation, I get a call back from Manny Le Coz of VWoA and he tells me that because of the trouble I will have to go through to make a claim with the previous owners' insurance from Audi of El Paso, he and his team decided to grant me a free replacement on my rear differential! Finally I was able to gain some ground and, even though it may not be as much as I originally wanted, I am simply ready to move on with my life and get past this problem, so the help that Manny Le Coz of VWoA has offered was definitely a sigh of relief.
Fast forward another week, I am attempting to contact a particular service advisor from Audi Richmond that I've been dealing with for this entire case to obtain the status of the vehicle after receiving the news from Manny Le Coz of VWoA. After leaving numerous messages on his voicemail and with the Audi Richmond secretary asking him to return my phone call, he never once returns my phone calls. I eventually manage to get ahold of him one day that he decides to take my phone call. He then goes on to tell me that they are refusing to service my vehicle based on what "may or may not" have been posted online about their organization. Yes, I posted reviews on numerous websites about Audi Richmond after they claimed NOTHING was wrong with the car in the initial inspection, and even though they were not vulgar but only truthful, someone from the dealership seems to have taken it very personal and they are refusing to perform the work VWoA is willing to pay for.
Along with the news that Audi Richmond is refusing to work on my vehicle because what "may or may not" have been posted in online reviews about their organization [by me], they now tell me Audi Richmond is working with VWoA to transport my vehicle to the nearest dealership in the area (closest is ~2 hours away) to have the work done! I have nothing good to say about this one service advisor from Audi Richmond as he has been useless since the beginning and now appears to be retaliating against my negative online reviews from my earlier experience with their incompetent technicians.
TL;DR--my appeals to Manny Le Coz of VWoA led him to come around and send an engineer to inspect my vehicle. Our findings and my service records correlated to draw a picture that Audi of El Paso improperly serviced my vehicle by draining my rear differential and over-filling my Haldex unit. Manny Le Coz of VWoA offers to help by offering a free replacement of my differential even though the vehicle is out of warranty. Now, Audi Richmond is refusing to service my vehicle due to online [truthful and respectful] reviews I posted after they told me nothing was mechanically wrong with my car the first time they had the opportunity to inspect.
NOVEMBER 17 2018 UPDATE
More than 4 MONTHS after the night that changed my future with this TT-RS, this chapter is now closed and settled. Manny Le Coz of VWoA really came around and helped to make this an expedited operation once we both understood that Audi of El Paso more than likely improperly serviced the rear differential during the scheduled 35k mile maintenance. Being as I am now relocated in Richmond VA, I had been dealing with Audi Richmond since the beginning. After they initially diagnosed my vehicle and claimed that nothing was wrong with the vehicle and the cause of the accident was some bald tires and slick roadway, I decided to post a few reviews online about their service and they denied to service my vehicle even with VWoA willing to cover the cost 100%. If you're interested in reading, you can find them at the addresses listed below:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/audi-richmond-richmond-2
https://snap21.com/reviews/audi-richmond-va
Aside from that mess, Manny Le Coz of VWoA took care of the situation quickly and reached out to the dealership in Charlottesville VA, about 60 miles west of Audi Richmond, and arranged everything to have them perform the work. He even arranged to have the vehicle towed back and forth, at their cost, from Audi Richmond to Audi Charlottesville. When the vehicle arrived there, it took them under a week to order parts and repair the vehicle and they were contacting me constantly to provide me updates. Service at Audi Charlottesville was extraordinary--when I find myself looking for another Audi, it will be worth the drive for me to head out there.
2000-miles of distance between Audi of El Paso and I made it difficult to fight the battle against the people that originally catalyzed this mess. To complicate matters further, they had changed ownership between the time of the service and now and, under new ownership, they had no records of ever having serviced my vehicle. Thankfully I had copies of the records that VWoA could review and that really helped my case with them. So instead of fighting for a new TT-RS, as I would have loved to, I succumbed to accepting an offer from VWoA's Manny Le Coz to install a new differential at no cost to me to just be done with this whole ordeal after months of taking my time, focus, and energy on the matter.
Unfortunately, through all this mess, I was not willing to pay months' worth of rental car fees so I did go out and purchase another vehicle in the meantime, which meant I was destined to part ways with the TT-RS at the end of this all. The car is now on the lot at Carmax in Midlothian VA.
TL;DR--after 4 months, the case is finally settled and VWoA's Manny Le Coz took care of everything from towing the vehicle to another dealership for service to every penny of the service cost. Although I would have loved to fight for another TT-RS with my hometown Audi dealer, I was ready to get this done with and VWoA provided that opportunity for me. The vehicle was sold to Carmax because I bought another car in the meantime to keep from dishing out thousand$ for car rental fees, and in my new living situation couldn't keep both.
(See second update in bottom of first post)
(See update in bottom of first post)
So my 2013 TT-RS is now sitting in the lot of the tow company after spinning out of control last night—the rear wheels still immobile.
I was driving on I-64 east of Richmond VA last night when I suddenly felt the car shudder then the vehicle began gliding over the lane markers to the right. I tried to keep the wheels straight and slow down gradually but the rear end slowly kicked out to the left side. By the time I knew it I was directly facing the right-side guard rail and moments later the vehicle tapped the guard rail just enough to bust the driver’s side and peel back the hood a few notches.
The vehicle came to a rest after doing a near-180 degree turn and ended up facing oncoming traffic. I am so thankful that immediately after impact the car was sitting mostly on the shoulder. The engine was still running perfectly fine with no dash warning lights so I tried to move it in 1st gear, 2nd gear, and reverse, but the car would not budge! I then dialed 911 and evacuated my girlfriend and I from the car.
State troopers arrived shortly after and we tried pushing the car in neutral but the vehicle would not move an inch. The wrecker arrived and the tow guy had to WD-40 the roadway to slide the rear tires onto the flat bed.
I checked the dash right after I felt the car shudder and I had no warnings of any system failure. After the car came to a rest, no dash lights came on either. Thankfully impact was not even enough to deploy airbags.
The state trooper’s report says that the incident was not due to driver’s error and I am convinced that a failure onboard the vehicle occurred that caused this incident. The car has been meticulously maintained. It has received every required service at the Audi dealership in El Paso TX (where I am from) and it was garaged much of its life. It is nearly new with just 13,000 miles!
I have already filed an insurance claim and contacted Audi of America to raise some attention so as to look further into what happened.
Any input you can give me as to what might have happened or what I should do next is greatly appreciated.
SEPTEMBER 8 2018 UPDATE
Up until yesterday I had not seen the car since July 6th. The vehicle went to the tower's wreckage yard for a few days to allow an adjuster to assess the damages. The adjuster quoted the damages at $8,000. Car is towed to a body shop that works closely with Audi Richmond. Vehicle front-end is dismantled and discovers further damage--ends up near $13,000 of damage to the vehicle.
Body shop claims as soon as the vehicle arrived at their facility, the car was mobile and nothing was wrong with the rear wheels. VWAG's Certified Fraud Expert Manny Le Coz agrees to pay for the inspection as a "one time goodwill gesture". I am then told that Audi Richmond's techs could not find anything wrong with the vehicle. Manny Le Coz gets back to me and states the following:
The dealer photos are attached for your review. Audi Richmond did not find any evidence of the rear wheels being locked up or unable to spin. They documented the condition of the front and rear tires, which showed signs of balding; especially on the inner edge of each wheel. If I recall correctly, the roadway was wet at the time of the collision. We recommend that you have all four tires replaced. Furthermore, the right rear level sensor located next to the aftermarket springs was found to be broken (see attached photos). We recommend that you have the level sensor replaced. No abnormal diagnostic codes were identified during the dealer’s inspection. We found no evidence of a product shortcoming. Audi will cover the cost of the diagnose as a onetime goodwill gesture. Please contact the dealership to make arrangements further arrangements for repairs or to have the vehicle picked up.
As anyone trying to protect their company would do, he is pawning off my issue on other small details. Well, as I begin to accept my defeat, I pay out my insurance deductible, then after two months I finally picked up the car from the West Broad Collision Center yesterday (September 7th, 2018). As soon as I begin to let the clutch out, I begin feeling resistance in the vehicle's motion. As I begin to accelerate out of the parking lot, I begin hearing some sounds but discount them as just a component of the shi*ty parking lot. I get out onto the main street and slowly my suspicion begins creeping back. Sure enough as I am accelerating out, I hear a GRINDING noise coming from the center tunnel and rear end. I drove the car straight back to the dealership (thankfully is only a few miles down the road) and let them have a piece of my mind. I called back Audi Corporate and left a message with VWAG's Manny Le Coz to let them know that they've officially done NOTHING for me. I plan to stir the shi* up as much as I can because I am prepared to part ways with the car.
tl;dr--no one at the body shop or the dealership found anything to be wrong with the car and as soon as I get it back, I hear GRINDING from the rear end. I am beyond pissed and ready to tear someone a new assh0le. Left the car at Audi Richmond and now waiting to call more folks up Monday to stir up the sh*t.
OCTOBER 27 2018 UPDATE
So I have gone through a lot in the past month and a half since having picked up the car from the body shop and dropped it off at Audi Richmond that same day. After having dropped off the vehicle at the dealership immediately after picking it up at the body shop, I left a message with Manny Le Coz of VWoA and followed up by writing him a letter to declare my case. Thankfully, he began to come around. He called me up later that week and told me they had decided to send an engineer from VW/Audi to the dealership, where my car was, to further investigate the problem. Manny Le Coz of VWoA came through and the engineer arrived at Audi Richmond the following week. The engineer spent an entire day inspecting the car (behind closed doors, of course) and returned to his team with his observations.
The most significant details the engineer came to find was that my Haldex unit was over-filled and my rear differential was BONE DRY. He found that the drain bolt from my rear differential had been tampered with (meaning it different position than it was when the vehicle left the factory) insinuating that it was drained, but the bolt to my rear differential's fill hole had not been touched. And seeing as my Haldex unit was over-filled, they drew the conclusion that someone drained the differential and over-filled the Haldex unit. After Manny Le Coz delivered the news, and seeing as no one besides the Audi dealership in El Paso TX had touched the driveline of the vehicle during its annual service, a technician from Audi El Paso may have improperly performed my 35,000-mile service by draining my differential and over-filling my Haldex unit.
Unfortunately, the negative result of the improper service didn't surface for 5,000 miles of driving over 16 months. To top it all off, the dealership in El Paso TX changed ownership recently and they no longer had any records of my service, but me having saved those service records helped to prove the service was claimed to have been performed correctly. Because the change of ownership, I was having a difficult time tracking down who I could hold responsible for this mess.
A few days after hearing the results of the VW/Audi investigation, I get a call back from Manny Le Coz of VWoA and he tells me that because of the trouble I will have to go through to make a claim with the previous owners' insurance from Audi of El Paso, he and his team decided to grant me a free replacement on my rear differential! Finally I was able to gain some ground and, even though it may not be as much as I originally wanted, I am simply ready to move on with my life and get past this problem, so the help that Manny Le Coz of VWoA has offered was definitely a sigh of relief.
Fast forward another week, I am attempting to contact a particular service advisor from Audi Richmond that I've been dealing with for this entire case to obtain the status of the vehicle after receiving the news from Manny Le Coz of VWoA. After leaving numerous messages on his voicemail and with the Audi Richmond secretary asking him to return my phone call, he never once returns my phone calls. I eventually manage to get ahold of him one day that he decides to take my phone call. He then goes on to tell me that they are refusing to service my vehicle based on what "may or may not" have been posted online about their organization. Yes, I posted reviews on numerous websites about Audi Richmond after they claimed NOTHING was wrong with the car in the initial inspection, and even though they were not vulgar but only truthful, someone from the dealership seems to have taken it very personal and they are refusing to perform the work VWoA is willing to pay for.
Along with the news that Audi Richmond is refusing to work on my vehicle because what "may or may not" have been posted in online reviews about their organization [by me], they now tell me Audi Richmond is working with VWoA to transport my vehicle to the nearest dealership in the area (closest is ~2 hours away) to have the work done! I have nothing good to say about this one service advisor from Audi Richmond as he has been useless since the beginning and now appears to be retaliating against my negative online reviews from my earlier experience with their incompetent technicians.
TL;DR--my appeals to Manny Le Coz of VWoA led him to come around and send an engineer to inspect my vehicle. Our findings and my service records correlated to draw a picture that Audi of El Paso improperly serviced my vehicle by draining my rear differential and over-filling my Haldex unit. Manny Le Coz of VWoA offers to help by offering a free replacement of my differential even though the vehicle is out of warranty. Now, Audi Richmond is refusing to service my vehicle due to online [truthful and respectful] reviews I posted after they told me nothing was mechanically wrong with my car the first time they had the opportunity to inspect.
NOVEMBER 17 2018 UPDATE
More than 4 MONTHS after the night that changed my future with this TT-RS, this chapter is now closed and settled. Manny Le Coz of VWoA really came around and helped to make this an expedited operation once we both understood that Audi of El Paso more than likely improperly serviced the rear differential during the scheduled 35k mile maintenance. Being as I am now relocated in Richmond VA, I had been dealing with Audi Richmond since the beginning. After they initially diagnosed my vehicle and claimed that nothing was wrong with the vehicle and the cause of the accident was some bald tires and slick roadway, I decided to post a few reviews online about their service and they denied to service my vehicle even with VWoA willing to cover the cost 100%. If you're interested in reading, you can find them at the addresses listed below:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/audi-richmond-richmond-2
https://snap21.com/reviews/audi-richmond-va
Aside from that mess, Manny Le Coz of VWoA took care of the situation quickly and reached out to the dealership in Charlottesville VA, about 60 miles west of Audi Richmond, and arranged everything to have them perform the work. He even arranged to have the vehicle towed back and forth, at their cost, from Audi Richmond to Audi Charlottesville. When the vehicle arrived there, it took them under a week to order parts and repair the vehicle and they were contacting me constantly to provide me updates. Service at Audi Charlottesville was extraordinary--when I find myself looking for another Audi, it will be worth the drive for me to head out there.
2000-miles of distance between Audi of El Paso and I made it difficult to fight the battle against the people that originally catalyzed this mess. To complicate matters further, they had changed ownership between the time of the service and now and, under new ownership, they had no records of ever having serviced my vehicle. Thankfully I had copies of the records that VWoA could review and that really helped my case with them. So instead of fighting for a new TT-RS, as I would have loved to, I succumbed to accepting an offer from VWoA's Manny Le Coz to install a new differential at no cost to me to just be done with this whole ordeal after months of taking my time, focus, and energy on the matter.
Unfortunately, through all this mess, I was not willing to pay months' worth of rental car fees so I did go out and purchase another vehicle in the meantime, which meant I was destined to part ways with the TT-RS at the end of this all. The car is now on the lot at Carmax in Midlothian VA.
TL;DR--after 4 months, the case is finally settled and VWoA's Manny Le Coz took care of everything from towing the vehicle to another dealership for service to every penny of the service cost. Although I would have loved to fight for another TT-RS with my hometown Audi dealer, I was ready to get this done with and VWoA provided that opportunity for me. The vehicle was sold to Carmax because I bought another car in the meantime to keep from dishing out thousand$ for car rental fees, and in my new living situation couldn't keep both.
