I had a terrible time today & am feeling the need to vent a little, and to let you all hear the stress that I dealt with. Just got this 2001 A6 2.7t about three weeks ago....love the car...anyway... I am on the phone at 3:00 PM in my office in beautiful East Orange, NJ, I look out the window & I see my drivers side door wide open. It took a few seconds to register in my brain, but then I went flying out the door & running down a flight of stairs. I am about 10 feet from the car & the guy inside my car sees me & starts to run. I chased him out of my parking lot & he got into a waiting blue Nissan Quest & he was gone.
I got the plate number & instantly called the police with my description, hoping in desparation that they could do something, but I knew the damage had already been done. When I got back to my car, I almost started to cry. The drivers door handle was gone, the lock was gone, the ignition was gone, wires are hanging out of the steering column, & I am bumming.
This is where the story really starts to get good. It was pouring rain in NJ today & when the guy got the doors unlocked (without the Audi alarm going off, BTW) he also made all the windows go down. SO now I am waiting outside in the rain for the cops to show, and there is no way to put the windows up. I decide to call Audi roadside assistance for help. After about 1/2 hour on the phone with them, I was basically told that they cannot help me at all. They said that because this was the result of vandalism, that they will not do anything to help me. Dissapointed, I call AAA. They will send a tow truck, the only problem is, I cannot get the car into neutral, as the ignition is gone & the steering & auto trans are both locked. They finally tell me that the only thing that they can do for me is to call a locksmith & give me a $100.00 credit for the service. I say OK, but when the locksmith calls, he tells me that he cannot do anything with the car & that it has to go to a dealer for the ignition to be fixed.
By this time it is almost 6:00 PM & I know that I am running out of time. The cops show up, take the report, put the description of the getaway car on the wire, and tell me that if I leave the car overnight, that the thiefs will deffinetly come back to finish the job & steal it. I am freaking out, my 3 week old car is getting soaked & I am running out of options. I decide to call Paul Miller Audi in Parsippanny, NJ as I had my 2000 A6 Avant serviced there before the lease was up & it was returned. The service department was able to refer me to a towing company that might be able to help.
Another hour goes by & the towtruck driver gets there, he is somehow able to start the car with a screwdriver & at least gets it into neutral, but the steering is still dead, and the car will not stay on. He was able to get the windows up & with some pushing, we got it placed so that he could get it on the flatbed & bring it to the dealer.
Now I am waiting for the damage report but I know it ain't going to be cheap. What really bothered me about this whole ordeal, was the lack of help of any kind that I received from the Audi Roadside Assistance program. I cannot believe that they could not even come & try to tow it to the dealer for me, or put the windows up...totally lame. I was also incredibly surprised that the car was so easy to break into without the alarm going off. The tow truck driver showed me that basically you pop off the cover on the door lock & any key will turn the lock & the alarm off. Again totally lame!
After all this, I am left with the one interesting thing that the cop told me. "The thief's love the 2.7t because of the quattro & that it can out run an East Orange cop car on the Garden State Parkway!" HAHA....ughh.
I got the plate number & instantly called the police with my description, hoping in desparation that they could do something, but I knew the damage had already been done. When I got back to my car, I almost started to cry. The drivers door handle was gone, the lock was gone, the ignition was gone, wires are hanging out of the steering column, & I am bumming.
This is where the story really starts to get good. It was pouring rain in NJ today & when the guy got the doors unlocked (without the Audi alarm going off, BTW) he also made all the windows go down. SO now I am waiting outside in the rain for the cops to show, and there is no way to put the windows up. I decide to call Audi roadside assistance for help. After about 1/2 hour on the phone with them, I was basically told that they cannot help me at all. They said that because this was the result of vandalism, that they will not do anything to help me. Dissapointed, I call AAA. They will send a tow truck, the only problem is, I cannot get the car into neutral, as the ignition is gone & the steering & auto trans are both locked. They finally tell me that the only thing that they can do for me is to call a locksmith & give me a $100.00 credit for the service. I say OK, but when the locksmith calls, he tells me that he cannot do anything with the car & that it has to go to a dealer for the ignition to be fixed.
By this time it is almost 6:00 PM & I know that I am running out of time. The cops show up, take the report, put the description of the getaway car on the wire, and tell me that if I leave the car overnight, that the thiefs will deffinetly come back to finish the job & steal it. I am freaking out, my 3 week old car is getting soaked & I am running out of options. I decide to call Paul Miller Audi in Parsippanny, NJ as I had my 2000 A6 Avant serviced there before the lease was up & it was returned. The service department was able to refer me to a towing company that might be able to help.
Another hour goes by & the towtruck driver gets there, he is somehow able to start the car with a screwdriver & at least gets it into neutral, but the steering is still dead, and the car will not stay on. He was able to get the windows up & with some pushing, we got it placed so that he could get it on the flatbed & bring it to the dealer.
Now I am waiting for the damage report but I know it ain't going to be cheap. What really bothered me about this whole ordeal, was the lack of help of any kind that I received from the Audi Roadside Assistance program. I cannot believe that they could not even come & try to tow it to the dealer for me, or put the windows up...totally lame. I was also incredibly surprised that the car was so easy to break into without the alarm going off. The tow truck driver showed me that basically you pop off the cover on the door lock & any key will turn the lock & the alarm off. Again totally lame!
After all this, I am left with the one interesting thing that the cop told me. "The thief's love the 2.7t because of the quattro & that it can out run an East Orange cop car on the Garden State Parkway!" HAHA....ughh.
i love my car to death too, i dont know what i would do in that situation
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