gluvbunny

Wow! I wish you were there to be my stand in and handle this one. Yes they seem to be shooting themselves in the foot, but since they hold the ball in their hands they won't give an inch and admit any fault here.

At this point since it was originally purchased at one dealership and now is being serviced at another dealership no one will take responsibility and there is no record at the original dealership of any work done on the trim. Obviously something has been done and someone will have to pay, I am really hoping that someone is not me paying the $2400 plus body work paint damage to remove the original defective trim and have it put on the car correctly.

I will have an updated tomorrow after I do a recon mission at the original delearship as well as await feedback from my own dealership. I am not holding my breath for any quick answers as we are already 4 months in and my Q7 has been in the shop for 2 weeks now while they try and figure out this huge mess.

Also... from my recent experience at the dealership I have seen 2 other trim molding colors come in, one being black and the other a lighter gray then mine. The dealer told me they both were painted even thought they had come straight from the factory. I think the newer s lines get black now.

adriangroom

Plug the supplying dealership for their comments on the fitting/painting of the original trims, see what they have to say about this and other comments raised by the participants in this thread, and post the results. If you've got a mobile phone with a voice recorder on it, use it - it may never stand up in a court of law, but it invariably frightens them enough to act if they put their foot in it somewhere along the line and say the wrong thing.

It's very litigious and sounds a bit drastic, but you're talking about a potential $2400+ daylight robbery here and you don't want to be the victim.

GRNMACHINE

Subscribing-very interested in hearing the outcome. I have never seen the Sline 21" wheel arch extensions painted from the factory. Have only seen them come in black. A number of people on this forum have gotten them painted professionaly. The prices of these parts from the dealer is astronomical. I listed part no's and prices in a different post. If you get nowhere with the orginal dealer I believe oemplus.com has them for around $1000. That is still a ridiculous price for what they are and still ALOT of money which the dealership should be covering. I was shocked to read the warranty 4yr/50k warranty doesnt cover trim/paint etc. That is covered for 1yr, what is up with that.... That is beyond pizzpoor

gluvbunny

I have a verdict. I called the orginal dealership this morning and they did a background check on the car's VIN # and the car was indeed shipped from the factory with the wheel arch trims on it and painted in the stone grey metallic finish. No work was ever done on the trim on my car at this dealership (I was relieved to hear that.), but they also confirmed to me that Audi only covers the Trim on all of their cars for 12 months or 12,000 miles whichever comes first. They must know that their trim doesn't hold up!

A few hours later my dealership called me and told me that the body shop decided after lifting up another edge of the trim on a different side of the car that their body shop had made a mistake. Apparently all of the trim has the original Audi adhesive; however, the adhesive over time and due to temperature turned into a more glue like substance thus ruining the paint underneath and causing the assumption that they were glued on. My dealership has offered to mask my car around the trim and repaint the trim free of charge as the warranty will not allow them to reorder new trim without charging me for it. I asked how they were going to stick the trim they pulled off back on and they said they only slightly pulled it off and it went back in place without any problem (i am questioning this). I am going with this fix for now and hope it comes out looking better then it went in for service over 2 weeks ago.

I did ask the dealer why they think the paint did not hold up and once again they said that because I am an isolated report, they presume it must have been washed with something that destroyed the paint. I pointed out the two issues discussed on this blog...

1. Why did the entire body of the car's paint job not peel like the trim? Their answer was that they are made out of different materials and use different paint so they react differently to chemicals.

2. How do I know that it is something the car has been washed with and not Audi doing a defective paint job. Their answer was because I am an isolated incident.

So I guess I will wait until the end of the week and see how it turns out and then watch it very closely. I definitely learned not to buy another Audi with any special trim packages.

Thank you all for your support in helping me properly gather the facts and for all of your very helpful information and suggestions!

GRNMACHINE

I am happy to hear the news, again trim covered for 1 year is absolutely GARBAGE!! Out of any vehicle I have ever owned trying to figure out what is available and not on the Q7 and compare it to the catalog options is the trickiest. Checked out the 2011 catalog last nite. They show a pic of an S-Line with grey colored wheel arches. They also show an S-Line with black colored arches. Dont remember seeing any grey colored arches in any of the previous year catalogs or mention of options etc.

The dealer offering to repaint them sounds like the best option. I am sure they could always use another bonding agent to make the arches stick. My guess is the paint or plastic wasnt prepped correctly from the factory. Additives need to be added to paint to stick properly to plastic. Can you post some pics of your Q so we can see the colored arches?

adriangroom

I agree with GRNMACHINE. Good to hear things are starting to move in the right direction but it's very little very late in comparison to what Audi or the dealership should have been offering to do right from the outset on what they heavily tout as a premium/luxury vehicle.

They're not doing themselves any favours in the marketing department. Maybe they're not aware of just how many Audi forums are out there and how quickly information on occurrences such as this filters through to their 'potential' customers.

I'm interested in researching this a little more as, again, I agree that the 1 year warranty is garbage. In the UK we have laws regarding the fitness for purpose of a product and it's expected reasonable life, and 1 year is NOT reasonable in my opinion, especially on a component that has no moving parts and it's only direct wear and tear is the sun, wind, rain and a bucket of water with some car wash shampoo in it! Not very impressive for a £45K/$60K vehicle

I'm going to start referencing up the various catalogues for the Q7 (for other reasons also), as although they vary from country to country, all Q7's still originate from the same place, the Volkswagen facility in Bratislava, Slovakia.

It would be helpful if you have any pics of the peeling paint if they could be posted on the site (for everyone's benefit).

Also, GRNMACHINE, you mentioned having looked at the 2011 catalogue last night. Can you post the link or identify exactly which site it was (www.audiusa.com)?

GRNMACHINE

yep audiusa.com

Here is the link:

http://models.audiusa.com/q7

Then choose download brochure

gluvbunny

here are some photos i took before taking it in a couple weeks ago.

gluvbunny

and yes those are 20's on there, i go up to the mountains a lot and could not get winter snow tires for the 21's so I downsized my wheels.

adriangroom

I've got 21's (they were on the car when I bought it from stock at my dealer), and although they look great, I would get 20's if ever I specced a Q7 to order as the ride can be a little rough on the 21's due to the low tyre ratio and biblical tyre pressure you've got to run them at, plus of course you've only got to touch a kerb and it's bye bye nice wheel and a £750/$1150 bill to replace!

I note in all the pics of the peeling paint, that it's occurring from the inner edges only. Is there any peeling on the underside of the trims anywhere?

That's so poor for a prestige vehicle to exhibit something like that. Would have thought Audi would want to get something like that fixed as soon as possible, as it's not a good advert for the car.

That looks like the Daytona Grey I had on my A6... equal second best colour in my mind along with the Mugello Blue.