Local businessman David Armstrong staged a protest on Saturday 8th March at his local Huddersfield Audi dealership. He was complaining about the high level of oil consumption of his new Audi A5 Cabriolet, which he claims has used one and a half gallons of oil in its first 9,000 miles of motoring.
Mr Armstrong said the oil light is never off for long, we have to top it up with oil almost every time we fill up with petrol. Audi UK has stated it is acceptable for his model with the 2.0L Petrol TFSi Petrol engine to use up to 12.75 pints of oil in 9,000 miles and therefore will not do anything about it.
Mr Armstrong decided to re-iterate Huddersfield Audi's statement of acceptable oil usage on the side of his firm's van. He then parked it on the road outside his local Audi dealers.
The Cover-up
The Audi Dealers response was to try and cover up the facts. They seemed to prefer their small print not to be spelt out in such large letters.
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| Audi Customer Care Response |
Huddersfield Audi then called the Police to have the vehicle removed.
Mr Armstrong said his protest was like David and Goliath. Audi is a large Company who are not being open about its cars oil consumption levels in their sales literature. Had he known about it before buying the car he would not have purchased it.
Mr Armstrong only resorted to this protest after giving Huddersfield Audi over 2 years to resolve it.
He hoped his protest would help to make other car buyers more informed and that Audi in trying to cover up the true facts have only succeeded in helping to publicise them.
The official Audi UK statement is acceptable oil consumption for their 2.0L TFSi Petrol variant engine is 0.5 litres of engine oil every 621 miles (1,000km). Therefore 12.75 pints of oil every 9,000 miles is within the manufacturers accepted usage limits.
Google searches revealed Mr Armstrong was not alone with this issue something which the Huddersfield Audi dealer refused to admit, despite evidence to the contrary.
Links to Audi High Oil Consumption topics:
Audi user forum California
Another Audi user forum thread on high oil consumption
Honest John's Audi experience
Audi A5 owners club
You can Google "Audi high oil consumption" to find out just how big a problem this is for many Audi car owners and how Audi are not addressing it.
Update:
Many websites report a manufacturing fault in a batch of piston rings in 2010-2011 as the cause of the problem. Audi in the U.S.A. appear to have acknowledged this and are rectifying vehicles there. But in the U.K. where Group Class action lawsuits no longer exist they are simply ignoring or denying the problem.
This leaves UK customers to each argue their own individual case for a repair to a company that refuses to acknowledge there is even any problem at all. Audi also appears to have raised the acceptable level of oil consumption for this engine, presumably to deny most affected car owners a warranty solution for the problem.
The VW Audi Group reported £105 million in profits in 2012 according to the latest Companies House financial reports.
Conclusion:
After a local news reporter became interested in the story, the local Audi dealer agreed to purchase the vehicle back from Mr. Armstrong at its current full retail value which Mr Armstrong agreed to accept.
