Audi A4 seats turning yellow, Audi India's pathetic response

What is weird is that even though they agree it is a defect, they told me the discolouration of seats can not be covered under the extended warranty and if I had reported this issue during the standard warranty, then I wouldn't have had to spend a penny on it.

BHPian prateekchanana recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Link to my ownership review

The car was due for its third service in Feb 2021. It was a regular service without any major mechanical issue except the steering wheel making a little noise while turning completely left / right. The same was noticed by the pickup guy and was rectified during the service. The total bill came around Rs. 32k.

The second issue I am facing is all the leather seats have started turning yellow. All four seats have the same yellow discolouration but only on the centre part. The side of the seats are fine, the door panels are fine and both the front and rear arm rests are fine as as well. For most of the time, the car has been driven with just two people on the front seats so its definitely not because of usage otherwise the front two seats have shown more yellow color than the rear ones. The car has always been parked indoor throughout its life except a day or two when on holidays, so this can also not be because of being in too much of direct sunlight.

The car has just done 13.5k kms till date and the seats have already started turning yellow. I got 12.5k auto form covers installed on my Honda City 8 years back which has done 60k kms and the car is parked outside during day time in Delhi summers and the covers still have zero sign of discolouration.

Upon reporting this, the SA told me that they'll try to clean it out with a special leather cleaner, which did not do anything. He returned the car post service and told me he'll need the car back again in a couple of days for inspection. The car was returned again for 2 days in the month of March, and he told me that the inspection is done and all the details have been shared and they are waiting for the approval from Audi on what to do next.

Now, as per the last conversation in April, I was told Audi has refused to cover this entirely under warranty and is ready to replace the seat covers with a 50% discount. I would have happily agreed to this if in any ways this was my fault, but this is clearly something to do with the quality of material used. The SA told me he agrees and is trying to convince the same to the company that the customer is not at fault. It is completely absurd for the company refusing to accept such claims when clearly it is a lapse of quality I feel.

I am waiting for the Delhi lockdown to be over to check if there has been any further update, but if Audi refuses to cover more than 50%, do I have any other options and is it worth it raising the issue further directly with Audi? The SA has been very helpful since day one but its still taking too much time to get updates. Functionally, there is no issue during the usage and I would not want to spend any money on replacing these covers from my pocket, specially when the fault is not mine.

prateekchanana shares an update:

The service centre reached out to me post lockdown and told me that the best they can do is offer to cover 40% of total costs of replacement i.e. around 3.5 lacs. The balance 60% I have to bear which is around 2 lacs, to which I refused as I don't find it worth the amount for the problem I have.

What is weird is that even though they agree it is a defect, they told me the discolouration of seats can not be covered under the extended warranty and if I had reported this issue during the standard warranty, then I wouldn't have had to spend a penny on it.

Should have asked for a confirmation on the same, will try to see if they can send the same in an email. The one l have simply says that they offered to cover 40% which I refused so they are closing this case, everything else was verbal. As per them, the approval came from Germany itself but tweeting to them directly might help. Will give it a go.

I agree their approach to handling the issue is disappointing. Even if the issue doesn't affect the use of the car in any way, it does effect the way it looks every time we step in. I understand wear and tear not getting covered in standard or extended warranty but a manufacturing defect getting covered in standard warranty and not in extended is totally absurd.

With my usage of car getting lower and lower, thanks to covid, I doubt the 70k extended warranty I got will be of any use to me except the peace of mind I have for the remaining 1.5 years, just in case anything fails mechanically. Even though I highly doubt that happening as the car has just done 13k and I doubt it'll cross even 20k mark before the end of the warranty.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.