Audi voids powertrain warranty on APR tuned car

actually it was ‘Audi voided my warranty due to APR flash’

hey guys - curious to hear your thoughts on this.

my car is going in for service next thursday. i just got off the phone with the service manager who said he won’t hook my car up to the system that scans the ecu and sends audi the td1 code. do you think there is any truth to that? it doesn’t make sense to me because i’d think audi would require a scan in order to reimburse the dealer.

/shrug, i guess at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, but would be nice to avoid td1 if at all possible.

they will scan your car for stuff but not for every visit. Mine was in for wheel balancing so they didn’t scan it. If yours is in for the XX,XXX service, they will probably be supposed to scan it.

If you have a problem that you are bringing/eventually bring to them, and they want to be reimbursed by Audi for fixing it, I imagine at that time Audi will be curious as to why it wasn’t scanned .

I also imagine it will become ‘protocol’ to scan, contrary to what your SA just said to you…and dealers who are doing regular service on cars without scanning them will be deemed bad boys and get in shit. I don’t think it’s very smart of them to NOT scan for codes. What if there’s a problem brewing, then they ignore it, then it becomes a big problem…then it needs warranty work…then Audi says ‘fuck you…you morons should have caught this ages ago while you were NOT scanning the car’.

Anyway, good luck.

thanks sak, those were my thoughts exactly. I’m bringing it in for my 15k service (though I’m only at 11k right now) and have asked them to look at my clutch (horrible slip, after hearing about Richi and others, I want to make sure there isn’t a leak).

We’ll see what happens, fingers crossed.

Looks like they don’t “have” to scan it unless you are getting warranty work done
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/476564-More-TD1-info

So I’m the total moron that started the TD1 thread over at Audizine. While many of you disagreed with how I handled my earlier issue with APR, I’ve only been trying to help with this TD1 issue and the AZ mods changed my text and title to make me and my post into a joke rather than letting a discussion on a very important issue proceed. My car is now back from the dealer and I still haven’t had my issue fixed. While Audi of Tysons was far more helpful than Alexandria, they’re still saying their hands are tied and they can’t fix my transmission issue.

Here is the exact text from my updated service record:

LABOR & PARTS----------------------------------------------------------------------
J# 1 30AUZ01 AUTO TRANS CONCERN TECH(S):1891 0.00
C/S THERE IS A ROUGH SHIFT/HICCUP IN THE 1-2 AND 2-1 SHIFTS
@ LOW SPEEDS. ALSO, UNDER FULL THROTTLE THERE IS A HICCUP IN
THE 2-3 SHIFT.
-
CONCERN HAS BEEN PRESENT FOR 9 MONTHS.
FOUND ECM TUNED.
ROADTESTED VEHICLE. CHECKED TRNAMISSION FLUID FOR PROPER
LEVEL AND CLEANLINESS. CHECKED FOR TSB’S RELATING TO SHIFT
CONCERNS. UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY RELATED TSB’S. ROADTESTED
LIKE VEHICLE WITH SAME ENGINE/TRANSMISSION CONFIGURATION
TO COMPARE SHIFT PATTERNS. NOTICED TRANSMISSION HAD SLIGHTLY
HARDER SHIFTS WHEN COMPARED TO TEST VEHICLE. RECOMMENDED
TO CUSTOMER TO PERFORM SVM. CUSTOMER ADVISED ECM WAS TUNED.
CONTACTED AUDI WARRANTY FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO PROCEED. AUDI
WARRANTY ADVISED TO PERFORM SVM ON VEHICLE TO BRING
PARAMETERS TO STOCK. WAS ADVISED THAT AFTER COMPLETION OF
SVM, VEHICLE WOULD BE FLAGGED AND WARRANTY WOULD BE VOIDED.
PERFORMED SVM AND ROADTESTED AGAIN. CHECKED ADAPTATION OF
CLUTCHES AND MONITORED SHIFT COMFORT. NO CHANGE IN SHIFT
QUALITY AFTER SVM. FOUND TRANSMISSION ADAPTED TO CUSTOMERS
STYLE OF DRIVING. ECM TUNING CAUSES CHANGES IN PARAMETERS OF
ECM WHICH CAN DIRECTLY AFFECT SHIFT POINTS AND COMFORT.

Hello and welcome. Sorry to hear your troubles with the TD1 code. I don’t think anyone thought you were the idiot. It was blantantly obvious that the AZ management had changed your title and closed your thread with the sole purpose of protecting advertisers’ revenue. Your thread should’ve been stickied.

Anyway the fastest B8’s are here.

Hey Hokie, Nice to see you here. I have to apologize; I prejudged you and than realized that it was not the case… my bad.

I recommended you to go to Tysons but now I see that they are also clueless since they say:“AFTER COMPLETION OF SVM, VEHICLE WOULD BE FLAGGED AND WARRANTY WOULD BE VOIDED” … Just like that?..

The text of the TD1 TSB says “…can cause damage and additional wear… voiding or reducing coverage…”

It doesn’t say that having a tune automatically voids our warranty. Damage or excessive wear due to a tune should be somehow evident I would guess…

I don’t know… I just got the missing page of the owners manual in the mail where it explains how to use LC. I’ve tried LC a couple of times when I just got the car and wasn’t even tuned and I can tell that that shit really stresses out the whole car more than any tune

Also, your service record ends with “…ECM TUNING CAUSES CHANGES IN PARAMETERS OF ECM WHICH CAN DIRECTLY AFFECT SHIFT POINTS AND COMFORT.”

You could send them a polite letter asking how did they determine that the tune actually affected shift points and comfort; or how can they determine if the tune affected or not if they didn’t even diagnose your car…

I have to say this whole site is a breath of fresh air! 8) No “hey check out my stock B8” threads here :o Coming over from 2.0TFSI tech forums to essentially non-existant tech forums having this site to reference is great!

I had my mechatronics replaced right before all of this TD1 garbage was really brought to the forefront. Dealership asked if I had software, I said yes, they said they would let me know if I needed to have the car flashed back to stock. Now I have to send my damn ECU out again after Audi reset everything with the new Mech. unit. I am doubtful they noticed the pulley.

Will be interesting to see how this unfolds although I am not too concerned.

lol I like how they think the tune can adjust the tranny. Someone should telll APR that…they’d love to be able to get more control over that DSG!

tribe, appreciate the kind words and I also still appreciate you sending me to Tysons. While they weren’t able to fix my issue, they are still a hell of a lot better than Alexandria was!

I just wish I could figure out what was actually wrong with my car so I could better push them on getting it fixed. I don’t know if a known solution may help the process, or if I’m screwed. Looking at my service record and talking to the SA, I have essentially been told that they spoke with the decision makers at Audi’s warranty department about my car specifically, and they were told they can’t do anything because the ECM tune voided all service from code 1000-4299, whatever that means. I don’t think the dealer had any real say in the matter.

The SA thinks if I bring it back up in a few months I may have a better chance of getting it approved, as more time will have passed for AoA to figure out how to handle the TD1 flag. I still think this is BS as a few of you pointed out, nowhere in the TSB does it state that it automatically voids the warranty, only that it MAY impact coverage. We obviously know that the ECM tune can’t change the shifting habits of the transmission. I just don’t know if it’s a HW or SW issue.

Just so you guys know what I’m dealing with it hesitates EXACTLY like this video from 2nd to 3rd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DRM-N-kfIDY

and another. This time a Stasis car.

Should get interesting…

I thought Stasis was the one that would back up any warranty work or something?

i feel so damn lucky all of a sudden! ;D

good point…you just got a full engine replacement while tuned etc… Holy fuck. Timing is everything!

they purport to have a warranty, however it was written during a very different time. They would supposedly warrant your car for any problems that arose that the dealer denied coverage on that were determined to be A RESULT OF the stasis tune.

stasis ‘tuning’ was traditionally offered at a variety of dealers across the continent. The deal was you’d go there, get tuned and if something went wrong, the dealer (stasis friendly) would stick Audi with the bill.

Now those dealers can’t do that…and even if its NOT a direct result of a tune, you can have your warranty voided, so it’s going to be pretty damn tough for Stasis to be able to deal with all of this shit.

I foresee people like the one whose post is quoted above to go through the following steps

  1. stasis tuned ‘with warranty’
  2. has a problem
  3. audi says ‘sorry, you don’t have an audi warranty anymore’
  4. guy says ‘ok i’ll get my stasis warranty to fix the car’
  5. stasis says 'prove it was our tune that caused the problem, and we’ll fix your car
    6a. guy says ‘it’s an Audi problem, but they won’t fix it and you said I’d have a warranty’ to which Stasis says ‘sorry not our problem’
    6b. guy says ‘it’s a Stasis problem, but how am i going to prove that?’ to which stasis says ‘sorry not our problem till you do’

Even if you do prove it was a Stasis caused problem (costly to prove) you’re going to end up in court before they pay for anything.

All these people who are citing Magnussen Moss warranty act have it wrong. The act was to allow you to use OEM equivalent parts oin your car without voiding the warranty. At a time when the big 3 were hurting financially (well…that doesn’t narrow it down lol) people were having warranty claims denied because of air filters that were not GM parts or MOPAR parts. Silly shit like oil filter, air filter etc. It was a nice loophole a dealer would point to in order to help the corporation dodge a big repair bill, and at the same time, keep the parts business running strong. The act compelled the OEMs and dealers to prove how a part made to OEM spec and standards would cause the problems requesting warranty fix…and of course with stuff like these filters etc, they couldn’t. So that was that.

People who take their 10.8 PSI stock boosted 3.0T Audi S4 with a TVS1320 spun at 17,800 RPM using the OEM pulley… then replace the pulley with a smaller one that spns the blower to 21,000 rpm AND re-tune it to not blleed off any boost…AND throw another 6-10 degrees of timing at the car…AND run a much leaner AFR…AND a raised rev limiter…this is NOTHING CLOSE to oem spec. These guys are not who the act was designed to protect! (and it won’t)

Saki, That is a 2.0T A4 not a S4 - same problem with warranty but different car. I have done those repairs a few times including pistons and they suck big time! I am surprised the B8 S4s are not consuming oil that bad yet.

Funny. Just thinking of getting APR Stage 1. My AUDI tech said he would still warranty all the work on my CPO. I guess it comes down to trust. He gets caught lying…and if push comes to shove and he is at risk of losing his job, I’m sure he would sell me up the river.

Good, time for companies to start bringing out piggy backs like the 335 guys. You remove it and no one knows a thing. BMW has been anal on warranties for years so when 335 owners go to get their stuff warranties, 5 minutes your back to stock and they can’t see a thing.

Apr should hop on that, or they should seriously work something with audi to become a true factory backed tuner like dinan. They are big enough to do that. Stasis has always been garbage so I’m not surprised