Checking Recalls At Your Audi Service

A recall is always a bad deal for both the customer and the car manufacturer, but they are essential to ensuring that every car on the road meets the minimum safety requirements and are not putting people’s lives at risk. It is important that at your next Audi service you check for any recalls which may affect you. They are easy to check for and simply require your vehicle identification number.

Why Recalls Happen?

Cars have thousands of discrete parts and they all have their own defects and lifetimes. Therefore, at each Audi service some parts will be exchanged more regularly than others. Lifetimes of parts are defined as how long they are expected to function before they become defective. All parts should have well-known lifetimes. Yet some parts are defective from the start. Once these defects are discovered they will require replacement with a different non-defective model of that part.

Most defects are detected long before the car is released for purchase by the public. There are stringent tests which verify the safety of all the thousands of discrete components as well as the systems they create when they are combined. Yet despite this there are factors which can allow for a defect to go unnoticed. Luckily due to the strength of these tests, this does not happen too often and it is caught before any lives are lost.

Reasons for Recalls

There are a few reasons why a company may recall a model of car. Most of the time it is because of a safety issue with the car. There may be a defective part or combination of parts. The customers options in this case are dependent on how bad the defect is. Some parts can be easily replaced and therefore the customer simply needs to bring their car in for a service. But other defects can be structural such as weakness in the chassis and then the whole car will need to be replaced.

Much less common, but relevant to Audi drivers, are recalls based on misinformation. The Volkswagen Diesel scandal which rocked the world a few years back, is still causing recalls based on its misinformation. As an Audi driver, it is essential that you check your Vehicle Identification Number against the database of cars which were affected by the tampering by Volkswagen/Audi. This recall is not about a defect in the car, but rather the car deviates to what the specifications say, which makes it quite a unique recall, as its often a defect which was not discovered until it was too late.

Why You Should Check at Your Audi Service

Now you might feel, that since recalls are not common it is unlikely that your car needs to be recalled, but it is essential that every time you take your Audi in for a service, that you check if it needs to be recalled. It may seem like a pain and it is easy to forget to ask, but it could mean the difference between life and death for you. Recalls do not happen for minor issues in a car, and you do not want to be finding out that your engine will catch fire, or that your diesel engine is actually more destructive to the environment than most cars on the road, after it’s too late.

So be intelligent – every time you take your Audi in for a service, make sure to ask the mechanics or sales assistants to check your Vehicle Identification Number against the database for recalls. It can save you more than money, it could save your life. At Foreign Affairs Motorsport we keep up to speed on all the essential recalls and services developments – give us a call at (954) 746-0488 to discuss.