Prestige Imports

Prestige Imports responded

Greg, we always encourage our customers to communicate their experience at Prestige. Whether positive or negative, we value our customer's feedback and utilize it to grow from our strengths and learn from our shortcomings. As we have told you before regarding this particular matter, numerous Prestige employees have contacted Audi Technical Support in an effort to secure a code to activate Audi Connect on your vehicle. However, the original owner never activated Audi Connect on this vehicle and did not have the activation code, so the system was never brought online. Audi of America does not have a solution for 2nd owners to secure a code to activate an Audi Connect system that is technically still "locked" by the original code. This is a known issue, and there is currently no way to fix the problem. Admittedly it is an after-sale issue with Audi and the dealer network (Prestige included), and we stand ready to assist any 2nd owners dealing with similar situations. But until we have a viable solution to remedy this problem, we will continue to thank you for your patience. We understand the importance of the remote lock/unlock feature for your Q5, and we will be in touch once Audi of America provides us with a solution. As always, we will be happy to valet your car into our dealership and perform the necessary software upgrade with little inconvenience to you.

Prestige Imports responded

JAK, As we have discussed this situation at length, we would like to offer our apologies for this unfortunate experience and sympathize with your frustrations regarding the turbocharger issues on your Cayenne. The fact of the matter is our service department did absolutely nothing wrong in this situation. Your initial oil leak was repaired to Porsche factory specifications and completely covered under warranty. You took delivery of your Cayenne with zero issues and drove the car for 300 miles before the turbo issues started. During that time, you even stopped back by the dealership to have the steering wheel adjusted. Even then, you mentioned no problems with your turbochargers. Having serviced the Porsche community for over 40 years and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, specialized tools, and training, we understand the frustration of unforeseen maintenance issues for any of our customers. That is why we offered a 30% discount to repair the turbos on your Cayenne, an offer we felt was an amicable solution to the matter, especially considering that we have never been allowed to inspect the damage to the turbochargers for ourselves. We strive every day to meet the highest level of customer service and repair for all our customers. And we will always hold ourselves accountable for issues that are our fault. But the problems you experienced with the turbochargers on your Cayenne would have been immediately apparent upon leaving our shop. That these problems occurred only 300 miles after your oil leak repair is very unfortunate timing, but that does not make the issue our fault. That said, our offer to heavily discount our repair services remains in effect. If questioning our integrity in a public forum provides you with some form of relief, then we hope leaving this review helps you feel better. However, the fact remains that we did absolutely nothing wrong and stand by our 40+ years of experience serving the Colorado Porsche commuter and racing community.

JAK responded

Mr. Noffsinger, I respectfully disagree with all of your your statements above. I feel like you do not fully understand how a forced induction turbo system works. Let me explain: If the turbochargers in my car were fine on install, then there shouldn't be any outside influence after if the intake system is assembled correctly, free of foreign objects, sealed and has air filters. Nothing from outside can get in there except for filtered air! It doesn't matter that I drove the car after picking it up from your dealership before I realized that my turbochargers were damaged. They were damaged during the engine out process and Prestige is at fault. I am baffled at the rate that this dealership and their management team continue to make false statements. These problems with the turbochargers did not occur 300 miles after the oil leak repair as Prestige has falsely stated. They problems with the turbocharges were present immediately following the oil leak repair as the car was making a whining noise I thought was fan related, and the car drove fine so I initially wasn't concerned. I didn’t realize my car was damaged until I had it inspected by a third party to check over the previous Prestige Imports engine repairs prior to what I thought would be a cross country trip in the car. This inspection revealed that the turbocharger impeller blades were severely damaged due to something that was left in the intake system during the engine out repair process at Prestige. The intake system in this car is sealed and it would have been next to impossible for anything to have gotten in there during the 281 miles I drove the car to and from work after this engine out repair at Prestige. I did not confront Prestige about this damage until I had hard evidence to back up my claim that Prestige Imports damaged my car. When I confronted Prestige about the turbo damage on 7/12/22 and produced photos of the damaged turbos the immediate response from the Prestige Porsche shop foreman was that it would have been impossible for anyone to have made a mistake and left any foreign materials inside the intake system to cause this damage. I also showed him photos I had taken with the engine out in the Prestige shop with greasy dirty shop rags stuffed in the turbo inlets. All that evidence was obviously not enough and the Porsche shop foreman then proceeded to tell me that the turbochargers were already damaged when they installed them back onto the car during the engine out repair process as to immediately limit any liability they had for my claim of damage. Keep in mind that this was a completely different response from both the service advisor and service director who told me at a later date that the turbos were in perfect shape when they installed them back onto the motor during this repair process. That obviously didn't make sense to me, raised several red flags, and made me question Prestige's honesty and integrity even more. I will also mention that in my communications with Porsche corporate regarding this issue with Prestige, they admitted to me that they were getting different versions of this story from Prestige about the condition of the turbochargers during this engine out repair, which led to them to eventually tell me this was a dealership negligence issue that I needed to work out directly with Prestige Imports. The statement that Prestige was never allowed to inspect the damage to the turbochargers on my car is also completely and utterly false. I offered on numerous occasions during my discussions with Dave Stribling the Porsche service director that I would have my car towed down there so that they could inspect the damage first hand. Every single time I inquired about this I was told by Dave Stribling insisted that Prestige did not cause this damage and they would not be inspecting the car and that they wished me luck. I wish Dealerrater would allow me to attach those email communications with Dave Stribling to this response. I was only offered the opportunity to tow the vehicle down to Prestige for inspection by the General Manager Scott at the same time as they supplied a turbo replacement quote, and this all happened immediately following my first public comment about the issue on their Facebook page. Prestige was obviously in damage control mode at this point. Another completely false claim is the 30% discount they are touting. I wish Dealerrater would allow me to attach the repair quotes I received from Prestige related to this turbo damage issue. I did receive a quote from Prestige to replace the damaged turbochargers on 8/29/22 from their General Manger Scott, but it definitely did not have a "heavy 30% discount" associated with it as they have claimed several times in responses to the various reviews I posted online. They gave me 2 quotes for the turbo replacement, the first one which was the supposed non discounted normal customer street price was $22,433. The second quote they provided me was for $18,638 and was discounted roughly 17%. They then added in a $1,000 slap in the face goodwill discount. This “goodwill” discount brought the total discount level to roughly 21%. All of this basically said we don’t care that we damaged your car but for public optics we want to make it seem like we are doing something and that we care. Keep in mind that anyone coming in off the street could get this supposed discounted price on having their turbos replaced. Furthermore any reputable local independent Porsche shop can do this repair for roughly half what Prestige wanted, and they have technicians that are Porsche certified, can be trusted and do stand behind their work unlike Prestige. I would be crazy, and it would be a financially irresponsible decision to accept Prestige’s offer and pay them upwards of $18,000 to fix something that they broke on my car, and have the same team of technicians work on the car that caused this mess to begin with.

Prestige Imports responded

Mr. Swager, we apologize for the frustration you experienced while getting your Volkswagen repaired at our collision center. As you are aware, there were delays in receiving parts due to supply chain issues and labor challenges we are currently working through. There was also a significant delay involving your insurance company approving the claims. We repaired your vehicle in as timely a manner as conditions permitted. We practiced transparency throughout the entire process, but we understand that present-day operating conditions could lead to frustration. For that, we are sorry. As you are aware, your Volkswagen had an un-repaired rock chip in the windshield at the time of check-in. Unfortunately, that chip spread while the vehicle was here for repairs. This does happen occasionally, so we photographed the problem area and had you sign a waiver acknowledging the chip as part of the check-in process. We appreciate the opportunity to repair your Volkswagen back to OEM quality utilizing all VW manufacturer standards, and we are truly sorry for any frustration the process created. If you would like to discuss this matter further, please contact Scott West, our General Manager - scottwest@prestigeimports.net