Bad Service | Audi TTRS Spark Plugs

[Angelus666]

So, what's your view on this. The TT was having a bit of work done at the very good guys at PMW in Chelmsford last Friday (along with the MC having another service), it was struggling upon cold startup. Anyway, the guys come back and suggest the spark plugs had never been changed in the 70k miles it has done. When I check my invoicing we did 'pay' to have them done at Stansted Audi as part of a £1200 invoice (they 'found' lots of bits that needed doing apparently) back in late 2015....so as you would imagine I'm somewhat p*ssed at them this morning. The car has only ever been serviced by Stansted, so it's got me thinking of kicking up a right fuss with the dealer principle....did the car need all those bits doing to it, what else have they missed, can they really be trusted...?

Best case is that it might have been an oversight from one chap thinking they had been done, worse case is that they took a look at them, said yep, they are fine...stick them back in and say we did them along with a few other bits.

As you can imagine the £100k R8 we were thinking of buying from them is now more likely to be a porsche....

[EssexZed]

I would guess that, sadly, a lot of this kind of thing goes on at dealerships. After two years though I don’t feel that a call to Stansted Audi will do much except raise your blood pressure!

[rally-chris]

Good luck with that - I can't see you will ever be able to prove that the now used spark plugs weren't new in 2015, after 3 years. Unless the spark plugs have an easily identifiable date code on them that refers to a date a few months before your car was built, rather than 2014/2015.....

Chris

[Angelus666]

Yep, that's the annoying thing. Even if they knew it was the original, they won't ever admit to it. Very frustrating.

[Silverzedtom]

Shocking when you think about what they are doing.

Unfortunately it’s the same with everything. I’m a plumber and the amount of boilers I visit that have good service history have clearly never been serviced properly.

With that in mind I’m sceptical of everything Mechanics do. I would question it and then not go back when the inevitable ‘sorry can’t do anything’ follows.

[Mister T]

I think you are jumping to conclusions without having any real evidence. What's the gap on the electrode? If they've done 70k miles it'll be noticeably larger than it should be.

Personally I'd say those plugs have failed because they got wet, has someone jetwashed the engine bay?

[Nictrix]

If you are in any doubt about whether work will be done on your car just ask beforehand for the old parts back.
Obviously not much the OP can do about this now.

[Angelus666]

Mister T, well the only evidence I have is the actual parts and the independent engineers saying that these are old parts....probably the originals and certainly not 18 months old. Not sure how much more evidence I need...???

Never been jetwashed directly, just cleaned with apc and dressed but nothing that would cause that type of wear.

[Mister T]

It isn't that uncommon if you google it, something to do with bad coil pack seals.

[Smartbear]

Mister T, well the only evidence I have is the actual parts and the independent engineers saying that these are old parts....probably the originals and certainly not 18 months old. Not sure how much more evidence I need...???

Never been jetwashed directly, just cleaned with apc and dressed but nothing that would cause that type of wear.

Unfortunately that’s just an opinion & not evidence, he’s probably right but you can’t prove it
Rob

[maxman]

I would go back with the plugs and see what they say,maybe a letter of the workshop saying these are the plugs that were taken out when they did the service would give you more clout.If nothing else they should give you the money to cover the cost of the plugs.

[Monkeydonkeyratmagic]

Some factory plugs have a blue ring around the white ceramic part. Amy sign of this present? My Fiesta had them when I changed them.