Sales Experience
One would expect the sales experience of a premium brand to be superb! However, my dissatisfaction with Audi Mumbai West has resulted in me writing this part in a separate note.
Previously, I had dealt with the dealership when we were looking at the A4. Though we didn't end up getting the A4, I was quite happy with the sales experience and a very helpful Sales Executive who brought the car to my residence twice for me to test.
However, with the A6, I was left wanting.
For starters, we were informed that we would have to make the 90-minute trip to the showroom as the car couldn't be taken to a customer's residence for a TD. Fair enough, after all this was a new model (though as a premium customer, I would have liked the car being brought to our residence - but that's just me. I feel that when we pay a premium for a product, the experience needs to be premium). Barring that, the TD went off smoothly enough and the car was booked.
The real problem started afterwards, and though these issues are not major, as a premium brand, Audi needs to figure out a solution to such problems if they want to build a good brand reputation that Mercedes and BMW enjoy. The Mercedes experience was by far the best experience I have had, with even my chauffeur being treated like a king - and that is important in my books!
For starters, we were told that the dealership had one A6 in the color we wanted with the interiors we wanted allotted to them. However, it came without the accessories we wanted, but would have a faster delivery - something that we were quite ok with.
However, here is where the problem started. Firstly, the car was delayed by a month, a fact I found out when I called the Sales Executive to enquire about the car. Again, this was not an issue for us, especially as I was aware of the same and had conveyed the information to the owner (thanks to T-BHP).
After checking that the car was not yet manufactured, and since the booking amount had been paid, we decided to ask the SE if we could get the BOSE system and WCI Package as paid for accessories with the car - something that should be possible given that the car has not yet been manufactured! However, the SE informed us that this was something that wouldn't be possible, and something that I didn't quite understand given that the car hadn't been manufactured as yet.
But since we already decided that these accessories weren't as important, we decided to go ahead and get the car when it arrived. We were promised a delivery date of end-Oct, and when that time rolled by, I had to actually call up Audi Mumbai West to enquire about the car which had arrived, rather than it being the other way around. During this time, we also found out that our SE wasn't working at Audi Mumbai West.
Ideally, we should have been informed as to when the car had arrived, as well as when our SE had left, rather than calling up the dealer and trying to understand what has been happening with our car.
Similarly, we had to make several calls to the dealer to organize the rest of the payment. Unlike the Toyota experience, where we had the car in less than 1.5 weeks from booking, Audi was taking ages to get back to us about any information! Heck, it took over 2 weeks to get the car into our hands once we found out that it had arrived into stock! This delay in doing everything is really what annoyed me, and I hope Audi takes it into consideration in the future.
Let's hope that this was a one off case, especially given that the A4 experience and that of others I know has been wonderful so far! As I mentioned earlier, these were small issues, but small issues that a premium brand should take care of.
Smaller, yet Significant Points:
During the driving experience, I really like some of the finer points Audi has taken care of:
- The rear sun screen rolls down when Reverse is engaged, and once the car goes back into 'D', it rolls back up.
- The Autohold features works every time the car comes to a complete halt, and only switches off when the engine is switched off. A boon in traffic!
- Finer details like the light under the rear sear:
![2011 Audi A6 2.0 TDI. Update: Sold at 9 years and 55,000 km-p1010039.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/858138d1692095005t-2011-audi-a6-2-0-tdi-update-sold-9-years-55-000-km-p1010039.jpg)
- The sport speedo marked all the way up to 300km/h!
![2011 Audi A6 2.0 TDI. Update: Sold at 9 years and 55,000 km-p1010045.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/858137d1692095005t-2011-audi-a6-2-0-tdi-update-sold-9-years-55-000-km-p1010045.jpg)
- Small interior details like the wraparound effect with an aluminum finished strip running across the dash
And more to be noticed over longer drives and times spent with the car. If I find anything new, will definitely update it on the thread!