Scotty,
I bought a car from a dealer in early 2020. It had an issue that made me nervous, so they took it back….they had a 3 day return policy..no questions asked. So I was looking at other cars and no…no…no…. Just out of frustration, i test drove a 2011 Audi A4 front wheel drive with the Turbo Direct injected 2.0. It had 85k miles and was in flawless shape. I was thinking of you the entire time. Sooooo… I test drove it and fell in love with the feel of the car….the steering and handling.
So about 8 months pass and I get a notice to shut engine off low on coolant. So I get out…check….and i am. I put some in…….it is happy for two days. Then i get the same message. I do a lot of my own work, but i farm out some things to a local Meineke shop owned by an honest guy. He pressure tested it and water was coming out the back of the engine…..I was like….what the heck is back there??? Then I got to looking. The water pump is on the back fed off the balance shaft.. My guy seemed very hesitant. So I asked him directly…no he really wasnt wanting to mess with this one….which i respect….the man admitted that Audi wasnt in his wheelhouse. So I ordered everything from FCPEuro and ECS.
The water pump, thermostat, and ECT are one assemble…plastic. I bought an aluminum aftermarket. I bought triple square tools. I watched a guy on YouTube by the name of Naptown Tuner do one in 20 minutes in realtime. I did the job in 4 hours…..3 of which were me looking for stuff I dropped….I have neuropathy in my hands. I also have VCDS software and hardware. So I have very close to dealer level adoption and coding abilities with VW/Audi.
WHY are mechanics scared of these cars??? I…get..their thinking.
In addition to what @yaser said, they are over engineered & too complex for most independent mechanics. As a result, most mechanics don’t want to buy the diagnostic tools required to fix the Germans..
The above is valid for the USA & some non European parts of the world. In Europe, there is a huge aftermarket for these vehicles & they’re much better made, also mechanics are extremely familiar with them, so labour prices are unlike in other parts of the world.
Good on you for working on your own car. Nobody denies they are fun to drive & very luxurious to be in..
Honest mechanics do not want to work on those cars since they break customer's bank. On the other hand, if you go to a Audi dealerships for repair, I bet they would love to repair your car.
I do not need a post showing one of scotty’s videos. I have seen them.
I edited this original post expanding it in great detail. I submitted it and it took it, built the edit isn’t here…..
Maybe you went past the edit window. Can you please type out your edited text here? I’ll combine it with the rest of your opening post.