3.0 TDI gen 2 PC group post-fix impressions

Smashed Ixnay

Veteran Member
Joined
May 7, 2010
Location
Auburndale, FL
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL
My wife wants a 2015 Audi Q7 TDI. Are all Audi Q7's the same? I would consider anything from 2013-2015, if they are, otherwise, I'd go for a 2015 just because it's newer. The only bad thing is that I can only find black, gray, silver, or white. It's almost impossible to find a Prestige model, since most are Premium plus.


Also, from what I'm reading the warranty from the fix is 10 years or 120,000 miles, correct?
 

skinnyv

Well-known member
Joined
May 5, 2013
Location
seattle
TDI
13 passat tdi se
My wife wants a 2015 Audi Q7 TDI. Are all Audi Q7's the same? I would consider anything from 2013-2015, if they are, otherwise, I'd go for a 2015 just because it's newer. The only bad thing is that I can only find black, gray, silver, or white. It's almost impossible to find a Prestige model, since most are Premium plus.


Also, from what I'm reading the warranty from the fix is 10 years or 120,000 miles, correct?

Not sure on the used cars it’s not a fresh 110k miles from fix date, I may be wrong. There’s another calculation on warranty for those.
Q7 is nice but with the new body style I can’t look at the older ones the same. The new are pretty dang nice but sadly no TDI.
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
My wife wants a 2015 Audi Q7 TDI. Are all Audi Q7's the same? I would consider anything from 2013-2015, if they are, otherwise, I'd go for a 2015 just because it's newer. The only bad thing is that I can only find black, gray, silver, or white. It's almost impossible to find a Prestige model, since most are Premium plus.


Also, from what I'm reading the warranty from the fix is 10 years or 120,000 miles, correct?


I’d go for 2015 because they made incremental changes to the emissions systems year by year to improve reliability. The warranty runs 10/120 from the date the car was first purchased, or 4/48, whichever is longer.
 

Smashed Ixnay

Veteran Member
Joined
May 7, 2010
Location
Auburndale, FL
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL
I’d go for 2015 because they made incremental changes to the emissions systems year by year to improve reliability. The warranty runs 10/120 from the date the car was first purchased, or 4/48, whichever is longer.



Ahh, okay. I thought the warranty started from the time the fix occurred. Still not a bad deal though, IMO.
 

dyehead

Active member
Joined
May 11, 2017
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
2013 Q7 Prestige
Too bad, I just traded in my 2013 Prestige with 74k on it. The warranty was to 120k, as I was the first owner. Maybe you can ask Tesla if they still have it in a lot somewhere :)
 

ivoking

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Location
Denver, CO
TDI
2015 Audi A6
emission fix problems

I feel like I should chime in here as I have had the worst experience since the "fix". I loved my 2015 A6 since buying it, the torque, responsiveness and fuel economy were outstanding. For background purposes, I lived in Cincinnati for the 2 years I owned it at first. Last May, I was in process of moving to Denver, CO. 2 days before the move, I got the "fix" done, in Cincinnati, and didn't really get to drive the car much before loading it on the back of the truck to Denver.

When I arrived here in Denver, and driving for a few days, I could tell something was off. Things got progressively worse as the car became a completely different car. It has zero power after depressing the gas pedal (esp when coming out of a turn), then 3-4 sec later, when it is already too late, it gives too much power after revving up and becomes almost hard to control. It hesitates and feels jerky (engine surges) when first started and at low RPMs in gears 2-3. Pulling out in front of traffic is a gamble every day. My wife refuses to drive my car because of the way it behaves now.

I took the issue up with Audi of America last Summer. They asked me to go to a dealer and have it checked for problems. I went to Audi Denver and they found no fault codes, although one service person told me in confidence that they are having a lot of issues with these "fixed" 3-liters around here. But surprisingly the car drove relatively fine for a day after getting it back from the dealer. Few days later problems resurfaced. I didn't have time to mess with the situation then and Audi of America closed their case. In the meantime both oxygen sensors went out (at different times), covered under the extended warranty, and both times it went to the dealer, it drove much better for a day after getting it back. Recently I was at Audi Denver for the 45k mi service, and following it I decided to go to an independent Audi mechanic near my house for advice. They drove the car and said - a car should not drive like this and altitude cannot be blamed for this behavior. He did go ahead and "reset adaptations on the engine and transmission" which seemed to fix the problems. Again it drove well for a day and problems re-appeared and continued to get worse after the engine and transmissions were given time to "re-learn" whatever the hell they are learning with driving.

Finally I just contacted Audi of America again for advice and help, although I doubt any will be forthcoming. The rep will do some research and get back to me in a few days. I would happily give back the $ to get the old car back. Without hesitation. But that is not an option, obviously. I am also hesitant to lose the extended warranty at this point because what they did to these things seems like a situation begging for major problems to appear down the road. For example, part of the "fix" was installing a new oxygen sensor, according to the booklet, which for me was May 2018. Since then I have had both front and back O2 sensors go out (one in November 2018, another in December 2018).

Any advice on what one should do here? Has Audi helped anyone in this type of situation before? Is there a tune of sort available that could help me, yet not void the extended warranty? Should I contact an attorney as I feel like I have been outright cheated with their promise of "the potential change in sound will not result in any noticeable changes to the driving characteristics of your vehicle". This is an outright lie in my experience. I don't care about decreased fuel economy, I don't care about revving higher before shifting during warm up, but I do care about car being an absolute piece of crap to drive. This past weekend I looked into trading it in, but am currently being offered sub $20k for it! Not a financial hit I am willing to take at this time. I can't sell it to another individual locally as it would not be fair.

Any advice/help is greatly appreciated.
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
You might research a chip tuner, like the Chipwerke or the RaceChip. There are other brands too. I have a thread on the Chipwerke experience with my Q5 under the Audi model sub forum.

If you get an ECU tune, (Malone) the problems are very likely to go away, also. Not sure why the fix has led to surges with certain cars. My guess, from reading a great many forum posts, is that the throttle adaptation and the fix do not get along in some cases.

There is an easy way to reset the throttle adaptation to a fresh start:
1) foot OFF brake, turn on car, so accessories start but not engine
2) press accelerator all the way to floor for 30 seconds
3) release accelerator and turn off car

Chipwerke also has a product called Pedal Commander or some such that is designed to make the throttle react more quickly to the driver.
 

ivoking

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Location
Denver, CO
TDI
2015 Audi A6
There is an easy way to reset the throttle adaptation to a fresh start:
1) foot OFF brake, turn on car, so accessories start but not engine
2) press accelerator all the way to floor for 30 seconds
3) release accelerator and turn off car
If this works it will be amazing. I am going to try it in the next hour or two.
 

ivoking

Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Location
Denver, CO
TDI
2015 Audi A6
It didn't work for me, the pedal thing. Unless I did something wrong but it looks like a straightforward procedure. Car still drove like crap after starting back up.
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
It didn't work for me, the pedal thing. Unless I did something wrong but it looks like a straightforward procedure. Car still drove like crap after starting back up.


It is too easy a procedure to do it wrong. I’m sorry it didn’t help your vehicle.
 
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