BrianVirgil

I have a 2016 S4. The ECU was performance upgraded. The plastic pulley on the AC compressor exploded, taking out the belts and whatever else. The dealership, Audi North Scottsdale, is saying that the ECU upgrade voids any warranty repairs. I've worked as a mechanic at dealerships and owned my own repair shop in the past. So I know for certain that the ECU upgrade had absolutely nothing to do with the AC pulley exploding. Anyone have any ideas on where to go / what to do to get this repair covered under warranty?

BrianVirgil

I talked to my guy that did the ECU flash, and the company he used to do it is GIC. He said that GIC's software can be removed and after that it will not be detectable the that car had been flashed. If Audi North Scottsdale will not do the repairs under warranty, then I can tow the car to a different Audi dealership after he un-flashes the ECU.

stanj

Bummer. Seems like you need to drag them to court. BTW this is the B9 board and your car seems to be a B8 based on the text of the post. Maybe those people have better insights.

mplsbrian

Yuck. Hate to say it bud, but your VIN is guaranteed to be flagged as TD1 in Audi's worldwide database at this point now that a dealer has seen it, and that means towing it to another dealer is not going to give different results. Dealers will also not ignore this flag because if they try to bill Audi for warranty work on a flagged car, their invoice will be rejected and they won't get paid.

Good bad or indifferent, Audi and its dealer network have a very thorough and sophisticated system for detecting and flagging cars with ECU mods and their default philosophical and legal stance is that once you have modified the product they created at their factory, the New Vehicle Warranty no longer applies to pretty much anything in that engine bay, and you are SOL whether it's a bad pulley or a thrown rod or a blown turbo or anything in between.

If you earnestly believe the ECU mod is definitely 100% unrelated to the problem you're seeking warranty on and that you should be protected under the Magnusson-Moss Act or whatever else, then you are probably going to have to hire a lawyer and be prepared to present enough evidence to convince a judge that you're right. No idea how that will go, but a quick google suggests that many have tried, many have failed (you will be going up against the legal team of an automotive giant), and I suspect you'll need to get yourself several months and several thousand dollars' worth of legal & court fees further invested into this problem just to flip that proverbial coin.

So, it might be cheaper to just pay for this repair out of pocket -- which you're going to have to do anyway most likely (and then seek reimbursement via the courts), unless you want your car to just sit there waiting for parts for 3 months while you work it through the legal system. Note too that no victory w/r/t this AC compressor issue will obligate Audi to remove the TD1 flag, so you'll have to do this dance with the next issue too.

Below is some light reading to help you understand the TD1 warranty flag system better. All told, it is pretty widely understood and accepted among those who modify their ECU that they are, effectively and all considered, throwing away their warranty in the process...but yet we do get these posts from time to time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GolfGTI/com...anty_td1_code/
TD1, warranty and a tale of woe | Audi-Sport.net
TD1 flag despite flashing to stock

markcincinnati

My dealer said the same thing about this: "modify" (in some detectable way) your Audi, add your performance (which I would contend can barely, or perhaps rarely used, unless the car is tracked) and subtract your warranty. The trade-off, apparently, is worth it for many people who do this, since it is so widely known that modding voids the warranty. It would seem to me, less expensive to just pay for the repair and see if there is anything you can do to get the TD1 flag removed permanently.

The thing is, the VIN of the car is now flagged -- and ANY substantive future claim would likely be, once again, flagged as "suspicious" and most dealers would not want to risk not being paid for such a claim.

It still seems like it would be less costly to buy a higher performance car and not mod it. Despite my own inability to use the performance of my unmodded S4, it has not stopped me from wanting the upcoming RS5 SB -- god knows where I'd actually be able to use more than a fraction of its potential, considering that's about all I ever get to use of my S4's performance abilities.

I guess statistics are on the customers' side, since most mods cause no issues for customers, or if they do, they are under-reported.

Good luck.

ghostrider990

This is where, a RELATIONSHIP with your dealership / service department / mechanic REALLY comes in handy.

BrianVirgil

Indeed. Since I bought a new S4 in 2013, which got totaled, then another new S4 in 2016 from the same dealer... That would be enough for them to cover the warranty. Especially since the ECU mods had nothing to do with the plastic AC pulley failing. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for all the replies guys!

alex6speed

Sounds par for the course, really. When I used to run a Mazda forum, I heard story after story of dealerships refusing work completely unrelated to the mod simply because something that's not factory was present. One example off the top of my head was a tensioner TSB being denied because of an SRI being present. The mentality just seemed like they'd rather reject warranty work and try to get you to pay upfront, rather than grant the work and wait for corporate to pay it back. Just like how @mplsbrian mentioned, you'd have to go through court and more than likely hire a lawyer if you believe this isn't right, though its often cheaper to just pay for the repair than go this route.

That being said, if you're ever going to the dealer in the hopes to get warranty work, get everything back to factory prior to heading to the shop. While there may be some things that look funny (off the top of my head would be certain basic drive cycles not being in the ready state), more often that not, they can't prove that mods were present prior to it making it to the dealer (though I'm not sure about Audi ECUs).

Best of luck, OP. Modding is always fun, but it's the first thing that gets pointed at while the 3 year, 36K miles are still there.

Wires

This would be a hard case to argue. Upgrading the ECU will make the engine rev up faster, and it would be easy for them to say the accessory system wasn't designed for that rapid of a velocity change, hence the failure.

Sucks yes, but sounds like you will be paying this out of pocket.

BrianVirgil

I spoke with Mike about a warranty dispute on a Tuesday. He said he would talk the Service Manager at Audi North Scottsdale, then call me back at the latest on Thursday. By the following Monday he had never called me back, and did not give me any way to contact him. Over the next two weeks I called back three more times, and spoke to Joe, then Shantell, and finally Kristen, who said my warranty dispute had been denied. Both Joe and Shantell assured me that they would look into the issue and call me back the following day. Neither of them call me back.




In 2013 and again in 2016, I bought new S4’s from Audi North Scottsdale. When the factory warranty expires on the 2016 S4, I will sell it and never buy another Audi.




I would have received better customer service from Walmart than I did from Audi North America.













I spoke with Mike at Audi North America to dispute the warranty on a Tuesday. He said he would call the Service Manager at Audi North Scottsdale, then call me back at the latest on Thursday. By the following Monday he didn’t call me back, and did not give me any way to contact him. Over the next two weeks I called Audi North Americal three more times, and spoke to Joe, then Shantell, and finally Kristen, who said my warranty dispute had been denied. Both Joe and Shantell assured me that they would look into the issue and call me back the following day. Neither of them call me back.

I would have received better customer service from Walmart than I did from Audi North America.

I then called the Service Manager at Audi North Scottsdale. He said he understood the issue, and also that he had the same ECU upgrade done on his Audi by the same shop that did mine - PartsScore - a great shop by the way. He said he would see if he could “bring me some love,” and that he’d call me back the next day. Four business days later he called me (after I’d left two more messages), and said he could drop the out the door repair bill from $3,900 to $2,600. So I told him to go ahead with the repair.