Dont take your Audi S4 to an instant oil lube shop

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Quote Originally Posted by bhvrdr View Post
I already blame myself enough and am aware what I did was stupid by not taking my car to a more trusted shop or doing the work myself but i'll share this post anyways and be ready for the flaming


I was looking through Groupon and saw a $49 deal to get a full synthetic oil change at the Valvoline Instant Oil Change place. So I figured, why not do an added 5K interval change at such a cheap price. I cant buy the parts that cheap so whats to lose right? ...and there is where my mistake lies and what turned into a 4 hour ordeal that involved police.



I pulled up to the oil change place and stayed in the car. A couple minutes into the change I feel a jarring / ripping sensation through the floor of the car. I'm thinking, "Hmmm, I hope they know to slide the aero belly pan to the rear to let it drop down instead of pulling on it." ...I make a mental note.


So now they are at the stage where the person up top starts to pour in the motor oil. He starts to poor it in and stops pretty quickly yelling to the guy below to make sure he drained it all out as it is overflowing. ... Mental note number two. Hmm.


So a few minutes go buy and I call the manager over and mention to him that I would appreciate it if he make sure all the 1/4 turn fasteners are put correctly back into place because they are very expensive to replace. He smiles and assures me he will make sure that happens.


So now the oil is supposedly back in the car and we are about to close our transaction. I'm standing at the front of the car now and i'm staring at a 1/4 turn fastener sitting on the ground under the front of my car. I'm waiting...waiting..waiting for someone to pick it up to put it in or to tell me "You're all set." ....and sure enough I hear..."You're all set you are good to go." So I bend over and pick up the 1/4 turn fastener and ask to talk to the manager.

The manager comes over and I point out to him that his person just left $20 worth of fastener of mine on the floor and I'd like to go into his pit to see what else is missing. He takes me down into the pit where I see this...



I'm looking up at the car at first and I see the DSG drain plug right there and there is DSG fluid all over it and dripping. I'm thinking "Why can I see the DSG drain plug? Theres supposed to be an aero pan covering this?" and i'm also thinking..."Oh [censored], they drained the DSG fluid."

As I keep looking up my brain starts to register what it is seeing. Holy [censored], this guy cut my car into pieces. My aero pan has a huge hole cut into it. I'm standing in the oil pit now with the tech and the manager and I ask the tech if he did this to my car and if he drained my DSG fluid. He says absolutely not. Well since I am under my car every week and I know no one else was under my car I'm finding that very hard to believe. So I took it upon myself to walk around their oil pit until I found two of these..



Yeah, sitting in their trash can are two pieces of my aero pan he cut out. At this point i'm thinking that I need witnesses, and alot of them. I call my wife and I called the police so I could at least get a report.


It looks like this is what happens...

1. Employee cuts hole in transmission aero pan and drains DSG fluid.
2. Tech tries to put in motor oil and it overflows all over the engine because no engine oil was ever removed.
3. Tech and manager were going to let me drive on my way with no DSG fluid and massively overfilled engine oil in which case id likely be out an engine and transmission.

I had the car flat bedded to Audi and will await the damage on MON. I'm worried they tried to cover up their mistake of draining the DSG fluid and put some no name brand automatic transmission fluid in the DSG in which case I dont even want to know how I can get Audi to test the fluid in there to see if it is non OEM.


I have learned my lesson. This sunday sucks.

Mike
 
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Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Sounds like he got his $49 worth, all right. I use VIOC all the time for my company leased vans-BUT-they aren't getting near anything of mine!


I can see the temptation but WHY the heck wouldn't you exit the car and watch them from outside the garage door, you can see into the pit and if they knew you were watching I'm pretty certain they would NOT have done that. I would have asked them, politely if they had any questions I'd be happy to answer them all and show them anything necessary.
 
I dont take any car to quickie oil change place, much less a high end car that a shop like this has never seen or worked on before.

The owner is not very bright. If he is under his car every week as he claims, why doesnt he just change the oil himself? The fact that the shop offered an oil change for less than what it would have cost him to buy the supplies was a dead giveaway of things to come. Surely they did not use vw 502.00 approved oil either.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I dont take any car to quickie oil change place, much less a high end car that a shop like this has never seen or worked on before.

The owner is not very bright. If he is under his car every week as he claims, why doesnt he just change the oil himself? The fact that the shop offered an oil change for less than what it would have cost him to buy the supplies was a dead giveaway of things to come. Surely they did not use vw 502.00 approved oil either.


They probably added MaxLife to the DSG transmission after they accidentally drained it, after all like many here claim MaxLife ATF works like magic in ANY automatic transmission.
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Originally Posted By: GiveMeAVowel


They probably added MaxLife to the DSG transmission after they accidentally drained it, after all like many here claim MaxLife ATF works like magic in ANY automatic transmission.
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According to his audizine thread, they left the dsg dry.

Luckily he did not drive it or else the repair bill would have been a lot higher.
 
VOMG! I only take my company car there. It's a lease, and has to have oil & filter every 7500. It's a comedy show every time I go. Half the time they can't figure out the Ford Transit hood opens with the key. Every time so far they do not know it takes a syn blend to meet Ford specs. And the upsells. Holy smoke, the air filter has 7500 on it, I do not need a new one every time. Hopeless....
 
I've taken my Corolla to the local Valvoline place. It's pretty cool if you've never been. You stay in the car and they act all NASCAR pit crew and start yelling out things they have done. One guy is under the hood and another guy is down in the pit under the car.

No problems with my Corolla but it doesn't have 1/4 turn fasteners or an aero belly pan or DSG fluid.
 
To think of all the people who have been screwed over by these types of quick lube places and drive away with the wrong fluid in their car or holes cut into expensive covers, and the clueless owner knows nothing.
 
Well, dealerships aren't much better. I had the oil changed in my A4 at New Orleans Audi while it was still under warranty. The only problem was the tech didn't drain the old oil. Found out after a few blocks when the smoke started rolling out. But, the service manager was unapologetic and refused to do anything about it because it was his "best tech." The biggest difference between Juffy Lube people and Audi service people is the level of pretense.
 
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Originally Posted By: GiveMeAVowel
I added a link which contains the evidence in pictures

Here

vw vortex forums


Your link doesn't work. If this is true as to what happened, it's an expensive lesson learned. I have no idea why you thought a quick lube place would do a proper job on an Audi.

Next time do it yourself.
 
Originally Posted By: OilSwine
Well, dealerships aren't much better. I had the oil changed in my A4 at New Orleans Audi while it was still under warranty. The only problem was the tech didn't drain the old oil. Found out after a few blocks when the smoke started rolling out. But, the service manager was unapologetic and refused to do anything about it because it was his "best tech." The biggest difference between Juffy Lube people and Audi service people is the level of pretense.


Agreed OilSwine. I have experienced the same level of incompetence at many $tealerships, from my Accord at the Honda dealer having ALL eight front lugs stripped (tire rotation) and an oil drain plug stripped, and then having the store claim it happened somewhere else (all oil changes on this car before I had bought it from my Dad were done at the same $tealership! Service manager was confronted by my Dad and they finally backed down reluctantly, the list of horrors at any number of places both $tealer and indy shops. VW dealer stripping oil drain bolt, not owning up to it, the time before they didn't even change the oil, but charged me. The good ones are few and far in between.
 
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Even my ex's A6 Avant took 45 minutes to change the oil. Nothing super complicated, just lots of 1/4 turn fastners, hex bolts, and screws. It takes patience!
 
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