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NHTSA Complaint Number: 005025902 | Incident Date: Apr, 01 2005 |
Consumer's City: SUNNYVALE | Consumer's State: CA |
Vehicle Transmission Type: MAN | Manufacturers Name: Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
Model Name: S4 | Model Year: 2000 |
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No | Component's Description: Service brakes, hydraulic:antilock/traction control/electronic limited slip:control unit/module |
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No | Persons Injured: 0 |
Vehicle's VIN#: WAUDD68D7YA | Date added to File: May, 23 2021 |
Date Complaint Received: Jun, 23 2005 | Complaint Type: IVOQ |
Incident Reported To Police: No | Purchase Date: Jan, 14 2000 |
Was Original Owner: No | Anti-lock Brakes: Yes |
Number of Cylinders: 6 | Date of Manufacturer: - |
Was Vehicle Towed: - | Description of the Complaints: While driving along ca-35 (skyline boulevard) at approximately 45 mph on saturday, april 2, 2005 during light to moderate braking around a curve, both the abs and brake warning lights on my 2000 audi s4 came on, along with 3 warning tones. simultaneously, a sudden change in brake feel was detected along with a "thunk" noise from the front region of the vehicle. the following week, i had the car inspected by two independent service and repair organizations, both of which confirmed an intermittent electronic failure in the vehicle's abs control module (a $1000+ part). since then, the vehicle experiences 3-4 of these intermittent failures during the course of a driving day. when the failure occurs when the vehicle is not braking, it's annoying but somewhat inconsequential. however, when the problem happens during braking, there is definitely a marked change in braking behavior as the abs controller goes offline. under emergency braking situations, i imagine such a failure could be a substantial safety and risk issue. somewhat taken aback by the total estimated repair costs of $1600+, i decided to do some investigation into the problem at sites such as this (nhtsa odi), audiworld.com and the web at large. what i found is a consistent pattern of this sort of failure across a wide swath of audi models during 1999 to 2000. further, i have also learned that the original part installed on the vehicle was rev. a and replacement parts being installed are rev. e. conveying this information to audi's client services through two written letters resulted in no action on their part beyond a confirmation of "your vehicle is out of warranty, you must bear the cost of this repair." that'd be fine were this a wear or maintenance item or due to my own negligence; however, i believe the evidence strong that this is a design and/or quality control problem on a critical vehicle safety system. |