Two weeks ago I had “70% worn disc/pads”. The very next day I had a puncture. I could NOT get the wheel off. I had to pop the bolts back in 50% then drive round in a circle to get the front hub to debond to the steel wheel. In the tyre fitters I ask them to try the other front wheel. Also bonded to the hub.

How did they measure the pad wear THAT accurately without taking the wheels off?

OP – I know a respectable NWest bikeshop back in 2007/8 that told me me crankset and my rear mech was worn out/not fit for purpose and asked if they could fit new.

I told them no ta. The rear mech is still going strong. As we know a good bike mechanic would fit new parts or simple ignore cosmetic wear.

If you are in the South East I can highly recommend Merc Medic just outside Woking

Our 2.7 TDI Quattro has done 100,000 miles owned since new in 2007 and been very reliable with limited servicing costs. The franchise dealer in Guildford I don’t have a single good word to say about.

These “warning lights” are a car manufactures dream as it’s very hard to sell the car on with the lights illuminated and how do any of us really know if they are “legit” ?

EDIT: never change the tyres at the franchise dealers, so much cheaper elsewhere. IMO new tyres required is a common dealer revenue generator.

EDIT2: We were told on a Toyota RAV4 that a new Cat was required, it was replaced under warranty then warning light on again and dealer had same story – new cat required. We looked on Toyota forum and as a result I bought a new battery, warning light never came on again

i share your pain. among other laughably expensive fixes i have just paid £250 to have a new rear wiper motor fitted to my a6

This DPF malarky is suspect, I reckon. It’s an inert thing with no moving parts, how can it fail? If it gets blocked up, then something else is causing it to either block quickly or not regenerate properly. Unless you address that it’s only going to block again.

they have already told me that the front tyres are 2mm off the legal limit.

Hahaha, this is why I don’t go near main dealers

This DPF malarky is suspect, I reckon. It’s an inert thing with no moving parts, how can it fail? If it gets blocked up, then something else is causing it to either block quickly or not regenerate properly. Unless you address that it’s only going to block again.

the fact that the car doesnt get any motorway miles is likely the cause, probably 10-15 minute journeys at the most.

Should of got a Ford Ka

£250 for the rear wiper motor fitted!?! I have exactly the same motor in my A4 (its a known weak point). I bought the genuine motor for £80 and fitted it myself with the whole job taking just half an hour, one screwdriver and 2 sockets.

the fact that the car doesnt get any motorway miles is likely the cause, probably 10-15 minute journeys at the most.

Er yes. Did you not get a DPF light on the dash before this? Did you follow the regen instructions in the manual when this happened?

You only need to get the engine revs high btw, you don’t hav eto actually drive fast (although it helps). Take it for a spin at 40mph in 2nd, that should clean it out some.

battery disconnect overnight?… loose ecu fault/limp mode?.. drive like its stolen?… fixed?

Don’t worry I spent over 2 grand having various bits and bobs removed from a bmw. Turns out it was probably the turbo which was gone (even after having un dpf’d and decatted, new exhaust etc etc). I sold the car to an enthusiast who could be arsed to keep going through a long line of incorrectly diagnosed problems…

Don’t disconnect the battery unless you want a bill of 50-80e for a reprogramme (assuming it’s like a BMW or Peugeot). Driving at 40 in 2nd won’t help unless it’s up a steep hill with the brakes on (if it’ll let you). You need to raise the exhaust gas temperature which the limp mode is intended to prevent. There are companies in Germany that specialise in cleaning these things for about 500e – Anything similar in the UK?

Disconnecting the battery does nothing to my VW, apart from sometimes causing the ESP to get confused for 5 mins or so, but that resets itself.

You can get DPFs cleaned out, yes. Driving at high revs does raise the exhaust gas temperatures, possibly not enough, but if you have the car it’s an easy thing to try just in case.

My clutch/dual mass just cost me £750.00 at a none Audi garage. A quick google suggested main dealer prices @£2300.00 😯

Exact same thing on out T5 transporter went the week before costing £650.00 🙁

That could of been my new Transition Bandit frame

Sheesh! And people slag of Renaults on this forum. Or do Renault have special rip-off-Britain prices?

dmorts – Member
Problem is it’s illegal and could cause MOT failure in the future*. It does in other EU countries (Portugal I think) so quite likely to come here soon.

*Or right now if you’re unlucky, your car could be taken off the road by VOSA at a checkpoint. Oh and there is also the issue of tax evasion

[citation needed]

Or do Renault have special rip-off-Britain prices?

Nope, they are just aren’t very good cars.

i had a A6 2.5 tdi quattro sport many moons ago…was a brilliant car except for when it went wrong….
got a letter once from Audi offering a free brake inspection..so i took it in…3 hours later they told me the rear pads were worn – near metal and needed replacing…they charged me £300…i complained and said that they had left me waiting for 4.5 hours for something they said would only take an hour to do…they reduced the bill to £190…
1 year later the brake light comes on so i took it to my local independent garage and he says the rear pads are shot…they had been put on wrong and had been rubbing the discs and had worn the outer pads…contacted audi blackburn where the pads had been fitted and their response was you should have told us as soon as you noticed…but there is nothing we can do now…my response was stick yer pads where the sun dont shine cos i’ll not be using you ever again…
fast forward another year and the auto gearbox starts to play up…wont go above 20 and only changes up to 2nd…had to drive back from work really slowly…
contact another audi garage who say oh its an ECU problem…they cost £900 + vat and there are 2 ECU’s that could be affected…i take it to my local garage and he plugs his computer in and says it seems like a gearbox sensor fault…he recommends another garage that has a proper audi computer who check it out and confirm its the gear shift ratio sensor….i contatc the audi garage again and they say no this cant be the fault but bring it in and we’ll stick our machine on it and suss the problem out..the cost of this would have been £100 an hour and it would take on average 6 hours to diagnose the fault as they have to eliminate all possible fault codes…they garage the car was at did take about a whole day to suss out the exact fault…they charged me £250 to repair it (£25 for the sensor and the rest for time on the computer)…less than half of what audi wanted to look at it…
another year passed and the headlights failed the MOT as the manual adjusters on the headlamp units were broken…you have to replace the whole unit as they adjusters arent available on their own…again contacted audi for a price and was quoted £750 + vat for the pair and then more for fitting…got it done by my trusty local for £600…
the car was a gift from my brother…but when he sold his x5 and needed a another car i gladly gave the car back to him and went and bought my own….bought an old honda civic and in the 3 years i had that civic all it needed was a new exhaust and 2 new tyres…had the audi for the same period and it nearly bankrupted me!!!
just relieved the DPF behaved itself!!

dmorts – Member
Problem is it’s illegal and could cause MOT failure in the future*. It does in other EU countries (Portugal I think) so quite likely to come here soon.

*Or right now if you’re unlucky, your car could be taken off the road by VOSA at a checkpoint. Oh and there is also the issue of tax evasion

[citation needed]

To quote directly from an email from Honest John when I asked him about DPF removal

DPF removal is illegal under EC Type Approval and
Emissions regulations because it modifies the car not to
meet its certified emissions on the basis of which it is
taxed.

The fact that VOSA in the UK does not currently enforce
this in the MoT does not mean that it will not in the
future. Nor does it mean you could not be stopped in a
roadside VOSA check and have your car taken off the road
for not complying.

If you don’t disclose the modification to your insurer
your car is automatically not covered (though 3rd party
damage has to be).

And, if it felt so inclined, HMRC could pursue you for tax
evasion.

So anyone thinking ore removing their DPF needs to be
aware of the potential consequences.

Honest John is The Telegraph’s motoring expert and has a website here – http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/

Recent HJ comment on DPF removal

The only thing I can’t currently reference is that it is enforced at MoT in other EU countries

Has the car been regularly Audi serviced, is there anything in the service regime regarding the DPF?

tbh You’re almost spending what my last two cars have cost me, but then we had an equivalent bill for the injectors on my wife’s diesel.

I’m not a diesel fan, well not since I was forced at work to have one in 1996 as I did a lot of miles – whereas my colleagues could have petrol cars because they were office based. They got 323i’s and C240’s – I got a Xantia 1.9 TD!

Not had one since.

I miss read that as Au Pairs 😳

Bought an Audi….. never again

How exactly does it cost so much to replace a DPF? It seems to be an issue I hear over and over again with VAG cars? It’s just a flippin’ filter isn’t it? So why so expensive to replace? (Genuine question from a worried VAG car driver 😐 )

DD, the DPF in VAG cars is a combined cat and DPF, so it’s full of catalyst metals and stuff. I think a lot of people don’t know that you need to take care of them, but I also think a lot of garages are happy to just slap a new one in and charge you for it, without figuring out why you’re in that situation in the first place.

It’s like replacing your toilet every time it gets blocked.

dmorts – Member
DPF removal is illegal under EC Type Approval and
Emissions regulations because it modifies the car not to
meet its certified emissions on the basis of which it is
taxed.

Well that’s a pretty strong assertion, very surprised about that.

organic355 – Member

Needs a new diesel particulate filter (which is probably just corrugated carboard/paper), anyone like to guess the cost from the Audi garage?

Diesel filter you said … hmmm … starting price £1,400 … plus being rip off for the rest I say the total cost will be £1,800. 😯 (okay just re-read the threads … close …)

I say Japanese car anytime … or Skoda at a push. The rest are just money pit IMO if something goes wrong.

🙁

Or a 2.8 or 3.2..

I say Japanese car anytime … or Skoda at a push. The rest are just money pit IMO if something goes wrong.

Skoda IS VW/Audi

And the thread’s pretty much concluded it was probably user error/driving style not the car. Reviews of the latest Toyota’s in Germany pointed out it didn’t like Autobahns as when the DPF cleaning cycle tried to clean it whilst doing 100mph+ it just spewed black smoke for mile after mile. So they’re hardly the pinnacle of greatness in this respect!

get it chopped out and egr and dpf mapped out problem solved lots less mate of mine just hadit done on a A6 2.0tdi cvt

Skoda at a push

Skoda containing the same engines and DPF technology as the OP’s Audi of course….

DPFs are a POTENTIAL issue for all diesels, I suspect that people don’t understand them, and mechanics understand them even less.

My car has no DPF, does the OP want to swap? 🙂

My clutch/dual mass just cost me £750.00 at a none Audi garage

About right, we paid £600+labour on a Passat at independent garage.
Another reason not to stay with VW/Audi/Seat/Skoda IMO.

What, other cars don’t have clutches or DMFs?

The DMF on my Astra 1.9 cdti was 1k at an independent! Rang around loads of places to get it that cheap too.

Petrols still have EGR valves and DMF’s too, they just tend to go wrong less often due to less soot/torque.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Reviews of the latest Toyota’s in Germany pointed out it didn’t like Autobahns as when the DPF cleaning cycle tried to clean it whilst doing 100mph+ it just spewed black smoke for mile after mile.

Well on the bright side at least it’s still doing 100mph+ 😀 rather than slowing down etc

If you cane your car up and down the Autobahn regularly I’m sure the DPF doesn’t need to be regenerated that often 🙂

Guess you had the engine management light on then the dpf symbol then the glow plug flashing at you which means its gone in to limp mode it wont pull your hat off
had it in Feb on my audi a3 170hp tdi Quattro 57 plate take it in as you will only clog it up more and you will not get it regenerate now, they will plug into the laptop and do a force regeneration and hopefully not have to replace the dpf the exhaust pressure sensor is cheap enough think it was about £50 fitted when they done the force regen not had a problem since

Gary

I had a quote of $7250 for new brakes for my RS4. It did need them. 15 minutes on the phone and I got them dhl’d from Stoke Audi, landed inc tax for $2300. Took it all to Audi who refused to fit them because they had a strop. Rang Audi nz who promptly told them to jog on as they were OEM parts and thus they had no issue with that and my warranty was not invalidated as they said etc etc. Fast forward 2 years and the garage are now trying to persuade me to buy a car from them. No chance, never ever ever ever again will I give them a $ of business. My local euro specialist is superb so I just us him, have seen some pearlers from the main dealer inc my colleagues van that got hit while in their workshop and they claimed that it arrived like that – he had photos dropping it off which slowed that argument down somewhat.

molgrips
What, other cars don’t have clutches or DMFs?

They do, just often don’t cost as much as VW/Audi/Seat/Skoda parts.
And if you get a petrol, no they don’t.

I sometimes think leasing with maintenance is probably a sensible option these days for how expensive some of the more modern cars are to fix.

Well my last e class diesel – just traded in, was 2008 and didn’t have a clutch or a DPF. It was an auto and was one of the last diesels without DPF. No issues in 80K miles. I’ve got another eclass and at least with the bigger diesels there aren’t many issues at all reported with DPF (I lurk on the Merc forums). Also I tend to use it largely on the motorway so hopefully it should be OK. There are a few complaints about the 220/250 diesels but nothing like as many as you hear about from VAG.

To the OP – on a 2007 Audi – why are you still getting it repaired within the dealer network. It’s probably time to find a good independent and get it sorted at a fraction of the time. Dealers are fine for standard servicing but you need to be aware that they will be charging you to be in the swanky showrooms!

hora – Member

How did they measure the pad wear THAT accurately without taking the wheels off?

Most modern cars have pad wear sensors. They’ll have just plugged in the diagnostic machine and it’ll have read out the current wear on the pads.

matt_outandabout – Member
molgrips
What, other cars don’t have clutches or DMFs?

They do, just often don’t cost as much as VW/Audi/Seat/Skoda parts.
And if you get a petrol, no they don’t

Woah, Hold the phone! Modern petrols done use clutches?!