Oops, dealer mis-advertised spec on my Audi

Dwilly

Bought an 09 A4 in December, with the advertised spec including the 'Audi Music Interface and iPod connection. After getting a new iPhone on Saturday I opened up the glove compartment to find there was no such feature.

Dealer apologised but said that the AMI couldn't be retrofitted. Anyone know of viable alternatives to come back to him with?

Anan1

I'd imagine AMI would be quite expensive to retrofit, but i'd be of the opinion that that's the dealers problem and not yours. I'd want either the AMI fitted or my money back.

Tigger

course it can be retro fitted

unkel

How much did the option cost when new? I'd demand either:

1. Deal is void, car back to dealer money back to you
2. Dealer fits the kit
3. Dealer hands you over a portion of what the option cost when new (say half the costs)

Up to the dealer what to do. If he doesn't want to do anything, it's time for legal action...

R.O.R

Audi Music Interface was:

VRT Band B - €335
VRT Band C - €355
VRT Band D - €378

In 2009 / before VAT changes.

Had to be ordered with Concert Radio or another extra.

Anan1

I wouldn't be taking half the value in full settlement so.:)

dizzydiesel

Dwilly wrote: »

Dealer apologised but said that the AMI couldn't be retrofitted.

Is the dealer going to compensate you - or negotiate a resolution?

Just sounds like - "Sorry - but tough luck"

JimsAlterEgo

fight it - not acceptable - have you 110% proof you ordered it? Speak to head office, sometimes they want to preserve goodwill.

smcgiff

Not just Alfas then.

My car was supposed to have Cruise control (biggie) and hill holder (no biggie), but got 2 years free servicing instead.

So, you might get some offer like this.

Drummerboy08

I'd imagine that you should recieve a payment for the amount it would cost to retro fit it IF you can prove you ordered it at the time of purchase.

I'd also imagine that you were never charged for the extra either, if it was never fitted.

unkel

Anan1 wrote: »

I wouldn't be taking half the value in full settlement so.:)

LOL, indeed not

unkel

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

I'd imagine that you should recieve a payment for the amount it would cost to retro fit it IF you can prove you ordered it at the time of purchase.

I think the OP bought second hand though?

podgee

Tigger wrote: »

course it can be retro fitted

...and it can be bought off these guys here

mickdw

Its not so straight forward to retro fit. Your car has to have the right stuff in it from factory. It says this also on website selling the upgrade. I know for early A4/A5, it wasnt possible to fit this. People were fitting a dension 500 I think it was called which allowed ipod connection and display details on the car screen but it wasnt as good as the ami setup.
If your car is a late enough model to have it retro fitted, well I would insist on that. If not, insist on the dension gadget.

testicle

unkel wrote: »

I think the OP bought second hand though?

So do I. Why would you buy a new car in December anyway?

If it is second-hand, the ad is an invitation to treat, not a contract, so there's diddlys squat that can or should be done now.

skyhighflyer

testicle wrote: »

So do I. Why would you buy a new car in December anyway?

If it is second-hand, the ad is an invitation to treat, not a contract, so there's diddlys squat that can or should be done now.

Eh? . By that logic you could buy anything second hand and have no comeback even if, for example, you paid the dealer for an A4 and he delivered a Ford Fiesta to your house.

The ad is an invitation to treat. The OP then offered to buy the car and this offer was accepted by the dealer on the terms of the ad, who took his cash. Offer + acceptance + consideration = contract. Also, under the Sale of Goods Act the car has to be as described. This one wasn't, but to be honest I'd say you're better off negotiating a deal with the dealer then going down the legal route.

skyhighflyer

mickdw wrote: »

Its not so straight forward to retro fit. Your car has to have the right stuff in it from factory. It says this also on website selling the upgrade. I know for early A4/A5, it wasnt possible to fit this. People were fitting a dension 500 I think it was called which allowed ipod connection and display details on the car screen but it wasnt as good as the ami setup.
If your car is a late enough model to have it retro fitted, well I would insist on that. If not, insist on the dension gadget.

Listen to this guy OP.

Owen

As an alternative to the Dension, ask for a Parrot MKi9200 car kit. Bluetooth handsfree, and the best iPod interface out there bar none (As long as the car doesn't have a Bose sound system).

Heroditas

Sorry for the stupid question, but did the OP not think it was a good idea to check and make sure all the features were in the car when they took delivery of it?

The Dagda

Heroditas wrote: »

Sorry for the stupid question, but did the OP not think it was a good idea to check and make sure all the features were in the car when they took delivery of it?

Eh? If you had only posted this in december you could've saved the OP a load of trouble!! :rolleyes:

testicle

skyhighflyer wrote: »

Eh? . By that logic you could buy anything second hand and have no comeback even if, for example, you paid the dealer for an A4 and he delivered a Ford Fiesta to your house.

The ad is an invitation to treat. The OP then offered to buy the car and this offer was accepted by the dealer on the terms of the ad, who took his cash. Offer + acceptance + consideration = contract. Also, under the Sale of Goods Act the car has to be as described. This one wasn't, but to be honest I'd say you're better off negotiating a deal with the dealer then going down the legal route.

The buyer accepted the car, and signed the contract. 2 months later he noticed the difference. If the dealer produced a Fiesta, I'm sure the OP wouldn't have agreed to the contract.

mickdw

PaintDoctor wrote: »

As an alternative to the Dension, ask for a Parrot MKi9200 car kit. Bluetooth handsfree, and the best iPod interface out there bar none (As long as the car doesn't have a Bose sound system).

How much integration does that give with the car? I had a quick look at it. If it needs its own seperate display, I dont think the OP would want it in his car. The whole thing looks tacky from the display to the mike to the button setup.

Owen

mickdw wrote: »

The whole thing looks tacky from the display to the mike to the button setup.

I thought the same whenn I was getting mine. I'm a real - OEM or nothing - kind of guy, but now that I have the Parrot in, the benefits the screen and remote bring far outweigh the asthetics. It's a serious bit of kit. Easily the best iPod kit out there, and having Bluetooth is a bonus, as well as it being an SD card reader, USB reader, and having an aux in too.

daveharnett

Anan1 wrote: »

i'd be of the opinion that that's the dealers problem and not yours

OP, can you clarify please - was the AMI part of the contract, or just part of the original ad which brought you to the dealer?

Vendors cannot be held responsible for mistakes in ads. Would you really expect the dealer to honour the ad if it mistakenly priced the car at €1, or specified a 30 litre engine?

flamegrill

daveharnett wrote: »

Vendors cannot be held responsible for mistakes in ads. Would you really expect the dealer to honour the ad if it mistakenly priced the car at €1, or specified a 30 litre engine?

uh? How do you make that out? A couple of years ago Dell put servers up on their site for a few quid. Thousands of people bought them, Dell had to honor each sale. If it was a case that vendors, retailers etc didn't have to honor their ads then they'd be advertising ferrrari's for 10s of thousdands of euro and then charging 200,000 euro when you come in. It's false advertising and it's illegal. Ignorance is not a valid defense in the eyes of the law.

An ad for a second hand car is placed by the dealer. A customer buys based on that ad, as others have said it's a contract.

As testicle said, you need to dispute it at the time of signing for the contract. But that's not where it ends, it just makes it a little stickier.

I'm fairly positive the dealer will play ball and you'll get something out of it. If the ipod interface can't be retrofitted then it can't be retrofitted, but you might end up with something else of equal value.

Two lessons here. Number 1 goes to dealers, pick up yer socks and make sure your ads are 100% correct or it'll cost you. Number 2 to consumers, bring in the ad when you're visiting the dealer. Make sure that each of the "features"/"adons" are shown to you (make sure they're working too!) before you give any money or sign any papers.

Paul

Dwilly

Thanks for all the advice so far chaps. To confirm a few things:
- the car was an ex demo avant brought in from the uk, about 6 months old
- bought it as my wife was going to give birth any day and I needed something more than our a3! Got a half decent trade in price and it was the spec we wanted ... Or so I thought.
- dealer seems to be willing to honour where possible, has asked me to suggest a course of action
- would prefer the neatness of the oem option
- I guess I trusted the dealer that everything in the ad was there, I mean you don't always open the bonet and count the cylinders, assumed connection was there.
Will check out those links however and see if anything looks like a runner. Cheers.

Dwilly

podgee wrote: »

...and it can be bought off these guys here

I'd be happy with that if they could do it neatly might send on the link. Thanks mate

Anan1

Dwilly wrote: »

- dealer seems to be willing to honour where possible, has asked me to suggest a course of action.

Good to hear, sounds like they're being reasonable about it.

Dwilly wrote: »

I'd be happy with that if they could do it neatly might send on the link. Thanks mate

That sounds like a fair resolution to me.

Dwilly

flamegrill wrote: »

uh? How do you make that out? A couple of years ago Dell put servers up on their site for a few quid. Thousands of people bought them, Dell had to honor each sale.

Paul

Didn't paddy power have to honour some ridiculous misprinted odds on a man u game a couple of years ago? Seems like the onus is definitely on the retailed to stand over their advertising

unkel

Thanks for reporting back here

Dwilly wrote: »

- dealer seems to be willing to honour where possible, has asked me to suggest a course of action

That's an honourable reaction. Fair play to them.

daveharnett

flamegrill wrote: »

uh? How do you make that out? A couple of years ago Dell put servers up on their site for a few quid. Thousands of people bought them, Dell had to honor each sale.

This has happened to dell quite a few times. It can go either way, depending on what country it happened in. BUT, this was in situations where the mistake went way past the original ad - dell accepted money, and issued an invoice with the details of the product. It sounds like this was not the case with the car.

flamegrill wrote: »

If it was a case that vendors, retailers etc didn't have to honor their ads then they'd be advertising ferrrari's for 10s of thousdands of euro and then charging 200,000 euro when you come in. It's false advertising and it's illegal. Ignorance is not a valid defense in the eyes of the law.

Adverts are not binding. If you don't believe me, I suggest you rush out and buy this 5 year old 80 litre cls with 5 miles on the clock.
Bait and switch, or deliberate false advertising is illegal, but that is a completely different can of worms to a genuine cockup.

Anyhoo, OP i'm glad to see that the dealer is being decent about it. I hope you'll name them when it's all sorted.

Mr Benevolent

Paddy Power odds, Dell's mispriced servers - utterly irrelevant to the argument at hand.

Dwilly

Confab wrote: »

Paddy Power odds, Dell's mispriced servers - utterly irrelevant to the argument at hand.

Hardly irrelevant, we are pointing out previous cases of firms standing over misquoted advertising?

Dades

Misprices are only ever honoured where consideration has been taken, i.e. money changed hands. Though I agree with Confab - mispricing and misleading advertising are different fish altogether.

Dwilly

Response from dealer:

We would not like to get involved in an "aftermarket kit" like this as it would lead to complications with validation of warranty. We will come to an arrangement with you if this is the route you want to go but it is something we do not recommend, and would not like to be involved with - particularly as it would be connected to the central computers for the car.

I hope you can understand our stance on this.

I didn't think it was an aftermarket kit, seems to be OEM parts, unless the process of fitting it would invalidate the warranty?

Stoolbend

Dwilly wrote: »

Response from dealer:

We would not like to get involved in an "aftermarket kit" like this as it would lead to complications with validation of warranty. We will come to an arrangement with you if this is the route you want to go but it is something we do not recommend, and would not like to be involved with - particularly as it would be connected to the central computers for the car.

I hope you can understand our stance on this.

I didn't think it was an aftermarket kit, seems to be OEM parts, unless the process of fitting it would invalidate the warranty?

If it wasn't a main dealer you should contact one and see if the genuine one can be retrofitted and how much it would be?
And also if it would in fact invalidate the warranty?

mickdw

Its an OEM part so that doesnt stand up. TBH, Id say you will find it hard to get them to fit this due to cost anyway but keep at them.

R.O.R

Dwilly wrote: »

Response from dealer:

We would not like to get involved in an "aftermarket kit" like this as it would lead to complications with validation of warranty. We will come to an arrangement with you if this is the route you want to go but it is something we do not recommend, and would not like to be involved with - particularly as it would be connected to the central computers for the car.

I hope you can understand our stance on this.

Read the above as - feck, there is a lot of work needed to retro that bugger, make something up about it "invalidating warranty". He won't like the sound of that and we'll post him an I-Trip.

Take it to your local Audi dealer and get them to price up the job using OEM parts. Go back to the original supplier with this info and give them the choice of paying the cost to your local Audi dealer, or doing it themselves with the OEM parts from the website.

JimsAlterEgo

you need a firmer stance, have you any proof this was guaranteed? Have you tried the Audi forums to see if its standard Audi kit?

Dwilly

I rang an Audi dealer this morning and the service guy told me that while retrofitting the AMI would be a pain in the neck to install, it wouldn't invalidate the car warranty but you wouldn't get a warranty on the new hardware that would be put in.

They said it'd be a nightmare job, would cost over a grand and they wouldn't be interested in looking at it.

Stick to my guns and get the dealer to do the work?

EPM

Dwilly wrote: »

I rang an Audi dealer this morning and the service guy told me that while retrofitting the AMI would be a pain in the neck to install, it wouldn't invalidate the car warranty but you wouldn't get a warranty on the new hardware that would be put in.

They said it'd be a nightmare job, would cost over a grand and they wouldn't be interested in looking at it.

Stick to my guns and get the dealer to do the work?

I'd be very, very wary of letting someone take apart my car interior to fir something like that. Sounds like it may be a dash out job. If it was you can be sure it will never, ever be right afterwards. You'll probably wind up with creaks and rattles all over the shop.

If you are happy with one of the aftermarket kits it sounds like a fair compromise.

Nonoperational

Get a nice aftermarket kit and you'll be laughing. It was probably a genuine error on the dealers part and you will most likely have no luck if you go legal.

Theta

Unlike with most things advertised where it is only an invitation there was a court ruling last yer that what dealers say and advertise to a customer are legally binding. I cant find the article on the Irish Times site at the moment because the search function is rubbish!

Dwilly

Stab in the dark here..
As an alternative, I have the armrest phone prep & bluetooth. Is it possible to control the iPhone via the MMI with an iPhone cradle and forget the AMI altogether?

-Chris-

Not that I know of - iPhone will work as a phone when hooked up by bluetooth or phone cradle, you need to hook it to the AMI to get musical functionality.

Dwilly

-Chris- wrote: »

Not that I know of - iPhone will work as a phone when hooked up by bluetooth or phone cradle, you need to hook it to the AMI to get musical functionality.

Yeah feared as much chris, thanks. Aparently UK dealers were offering the retrofit as a service last year. Left a message with a service chap in Agnews in Belfast to see if they'd be willing to do it.

mickdw

Get them to install the dension gadget. Best bet if the ami is a huge job.

Dwilly

Belfast Audi (Agnews) where I bought my last car will do the job for £399, so booked in and Maxwell Motors are covering the cost.

unkel

That's great news! Thanks for the update. It's also good to see Maxwell Motors' positive attitude throughout.

Out of interest, how did you find out about the Audi UK retrofitting deal?

Dwilly

unkel wrote: »

That's great news! Thanks for the update. It's also good to see Maxwell Motors' positive attitude throughout.

Out of interest, how did you find out about the Audi UK retrofitting deal?

I'm definitely please with their response.

RE the retrofit I searched some of the UK boards and there was a lot of talk about the Audi dealers offering it as a service last year. Gave the Belfast dealer a buzz and they confirmed it was a run of the mill job once they checked the chassis number.