Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Vorsprung durch Technik
I used to work with a bunch of Germans and there was one marketing lady with whom I got on pretty well. Even though I speak very little to no German I managed to impress her imensely by sneaking that phrase into a conversation where it fitted the context perfectly and being German my marketeer friend didn't know about that particular advertising slogan. The reason I mention this is because I now own an Audi A3 and I have a story to rival Richard's spark plug rip off.
My car recently passed its four year anniversary and I thought long and hard about extending its warranty at a cost of probably around £500. Last year the things that went wrong would have cost about £10 without a warranty so I decided "no".
A couple of weeks ago the indicators went on the blink, or rather, they failed to go on the blink if you see what I mean. It's bizarre trying to drive without indicators, so I booked the car into my local Audi garage to find out what they could do about it. The conversation went like this:
Service person: "You've booked your car in to have the broken indicators investigated."
Me: "yes."
Service person: "Is there anything else you'd like us to do?"
Me (puzzled): "Well I'd like you to fix them if you can."
In the end, as I had suspected, it turned out the switch was broken (supposed to be unheard of on an Audi). The bill presented for the measely switch including labour was £114. So now I have £386 left before I curse my decision about the warranty.
They made an excellent job of cleaning my car though.
My car recently passed its four year anniversary and I thought long and hard about extending its warranty at a cost of probably around £500. Last year the things that went wrong would have cost about £10 without a warranty so I decided "no".
A couple of weeks ago the indicators went on the blink, or rather, they failed to go on the blink if you see what I mean. It's bizarre trying to drive without indicators, so I booked the car into my local Audi garage to find out what they could do about it. The conversation went like this:
Service person: "You've booked your car in to have the broken indicators investigated."
Me: "yes."
Service person: "Is there anything else you'd like us to do?"
Me (puzzled): "Well I'd like you to fix them if you can."
In the end, as I had suspected, it turned out the switch was broken (supposed to be unheard of on an Audi). The bill presented for the measely switch including labour was £114. So now I have £386 left before I curse my decision about the warranty.
They made an excellent job of cleaning my car though.
# posted by JeremyP : 5:52 pm
