Audi S3 2007 Progress.. 430bhp+ Build

[Dom]

Originally Posted by D4MJT

SaxP banter aside, that's really shitty luck and no fun at all, you must be pretty sick.

Is it definitely valve / piston damage and terminal?

What's the score with getting a car home from the ring? Do you literally just ring Blackie and tempt him with meaty pies?

Yes it's definitely terminal. Myself and Ross took a look, and decided after 5 mins it wasn't worth trying to save at all.

I'm tempting green flag with pies first, I took out European breakdown cover only a matter of hours before.

[deano_123]

What a pisser! Gutted for you

[D4MJT]

Arsehats

What's the plan then? Recover it back and chuck an engine in it, or are you going to break it?

[Dom]

We honestly don't know at the moment. The priority is to get it back to the UK and look at how much damage has been done.

[rey]

Sucks about the engine Dom.

Hopefully it's fixable.

[Ashleyp]

Wounded Dom, that's shit news man!

[rey]

Not to be too much of a cunt, but if you do split, let me know about rnse and seats...

[Tom5190]

That sucks! Hope you can get it back hastle free. Also the same as above too I am interested in a few parts if you do split.

[Dom]

Don't worry I'm not going to accuse you of being vultures haha. I have no plans to break the car first, I will try and repair it first without throwing thousands at it. Before all that I have to pick the car up from Germany, Green Flag have refused to pick it up, leaving Ross and myself needing to pick it up this weekend *fingers crossed*. It's a long story with Green Flag but I will post up when I get home.

[Giraffe]

Does anything ever go to plan with you? Nothing ever seems straight forward...

[Rossp]

I'll just leave this here...



(huge thanks to Danny - Craigs mate - for helping recover the car back from Gunters to the hotel )

In other news, Dom didn't let the breakdown ruin ALL the fun... Still got the ritual naked 'ring pictures in...

[Dom]

The "But did you die?!" update

Well, only the S3 did. Thursday started great, woke up and left early. Small amount of pit stops due to a dog that didn't like being in the boot of a RS6. Ross pulled over, popped his boot and no dog. My heart sank thinking "Shit, we left him and the service station."..




With Samson sorted, Ross proceeded to remove the car off the German barge's roof & then we set off again.

Arrived in France, spent about 15 minutes before we were onto the clean Belgian roads. Full speed ahead to Adenau!


The journey there was great, the closer we got to the destination, the faster the speeds got. I spent a lot of the time chasing Porsche's, 160mph sticking to their bumper, they couldn't get away. I loved the power and grip the S3 was putting down with its lovely new clutch and brand new Goodyear Eagle F1's that went on a couple of days before. Ross on the other hand didn't need to try with the cars on the motorway, still nothing is yet to own the RS6.

That was it, parked up, went out for dinner, done some epic roads and then that was it for the night.


The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn, or in my case, my mrs crack. Breakfast done, full speed ahead and I was looking forward to putting the power down. After a long wait, I got the chance to. Typically this ended prematurely. Later that evening, sudden drop in Oil Pressure and it was game over for the engine, it was a dead stick.

Luckily enough, at 8-9pm at night the only place able to recover me helped me out, we were pretty much outside after going out for a meal in Adenau, and charged me £500 for the privilege. After 3 days, and a lot of fucking around from Green Flag, the choice was made to recover the car ourselves. The guys in the hotel helped me out massively and let me borrow their trailer and Amarok, one of them is on Saxp somewhere? Thanks very much gents.




And that's it. Game over. We're going back with a trailer this weekend to recover the car. All costs are being forwarded to Green Flag, and a compensation package will be put towards the rebuild of the car. It was a shameful ending to an epic trip over. I'm pleased I've got the car handling and power delivery to a near perfect state.

I've spoke to Doug at MRC and he is expecting a melted mess of an engine once it gets back to the UK. Hopefully we can salvage some parts, but the Turbo will be cooked along with the bottom end. The rebuild will take time, a lot of expense I expect, and I will hopefully change parts in future to hit the 450bhp mark.

[Rossp]

Bump for updates.

After driving a trailer to Germany and dragging this car back in a single day, I want big credits. kthxbai

As we were driving past, couldn't really resist a photo opportunity...

[gartrell]

This thread actually popped into my head when I went earlier in the month, scared me lol

Unlucky about the car, sounds like a nightmare!



Do you know the damage yet??

[deano_123]

Where was the dog then?

[Dom]

Originally Posted by gartrell

This thread actually popped into my head when I went earlier in the month, scared me lol

Unlucky about the car, sounds like a nightmare!

Do you know the damage yet??

Yes, the damage is that the engine is completely ruined as expected, its got that bad that its really not worth rebuilding at all.

I'm hoping after two months of being off the road, that within the next two weeks I can source and engine and turbo and get this car back to how it was.

Originally Posted by deano_123

Where was the dog then?

Decided it didn't like the boot and jumped over into the back seats for a closer look at the speedo it seems.

[gartrell]

I suppose on the brightside, when you source an engine you can upgrade etc before it goes back in. Must have been driving it properly to get it to the state where it's not worth rebuilding!! lol

Howcome Greenflag wouldn't recover you? Luckily I didn't have to use my breakdown (bought through EuroTunnel), but when I go back next year I'll be looking at RAC/Greenflag as they seem abit cheaper as I'm already a policy holder.. but i don't like the idea of using them if they won't recover me :/

[Stissy]

Seems like an absolute nightmare. I feel for you, every car you buy seems to break or have other major issues. Good luck in getting everything sorted .

[Dom]

Originally Posted by gartrell

I suppose on the brightside, when you source an engine you can upgrade etc before it goes back in. Must have been driving it properly to get it to the state where it's not worth rebuilding!! lol

Howcome Greenflag wouldn't recover you? Luckily I didn't have to use my breakdown (bought through EuroTunnel), but when I go back next year I'll be looking at RAC/Greenflag as they seem abit cheaper as I'm already a policy holder.. but i don't like the idea of using them if they won't recover me :/

I really really have bit my tongue on this one until it was settled. So here goes my long arse story.

Sainsburys are my car insurance provider, and who I upgraded my European cover to include this journey. They use Green Flag as their recovery company, all owned by UKI Ltd.

I upgraded the policy in Dover, the morning we set sail. All okay.

Next day car blows itself to shreds. Phone Green Flag and said what happened, they promised to phone back in a hour with what the next steps are.

Next day rolls around, still no phone call, for all they knew I could have been stuck in Germany on a back road, luckily enough I wasn't. They phone me and interrogate me about the reasons I'm in Germany. Asking if my cars modified, am I participating in off road racing events, accused me of lying about my location when taking out the policy and them TELLING me that the car was already faulty when I took the policy out. My honest and blunt response to that was "I done fucking well to get a seized S3 from Dover to Germany, are you absolutely stupid?". Admittedly after various accusations I lost it. Literally lost the plot. I even said I welcome any inspection on that car to prove its not modified.

Sunday now rolls around, nothing. I'm doing all the chasing and I get no calls back, the claims team dealing with my case (which they escalated as they thought it was fraudulent) have fucked off for the weekend, and are not in until Tuesday.

On the Tuesday morning, the sinking feeling came over me and I had to get the car out of the storage centre, originally the bill was £12 a night, but this time round due to I needed it out on a Bank Holiday weekend, the two/three nights cost me £196. Thanks to the guys staying in our hotel, we got it out. I went absolutely mental at Green Flag, Ross could get me back to Dover but from there I had no way of getting back home, so a hire car was arranged.

I left the car in the hotel with a feeling that i'll have to recover it myself. On the drive to the Ferry I get a phone call, a french person who refused to listen to me, read off the statement on his screen and put the phone down despite me still talking. It simply read "Because your car is heavily modified, Green Flag refuse to recover, and my policy with Sainsburys car insurance/Green Flag is terminated with immediate effect". Luckily enough I expected a statement, but nonetheless, it hit a nerve and again I turned into a fruit loop.

Wednesday morning I hammer down Sainsburys/Green Flag, they admit fault straight away, admitted that even if the car was modified that they would recover it anyway, but they wanted pictures of the car with a Newspaper infront of it showing the date. They said... If I can go back to Germany and get these pictures and recover the car myself, they will re-reimburse me for any costs".. Deal.

So in two days, Ross and myself arranged a trailer, ferry, hotel in Dover for the friday evening with enough room for a trailer etc. In total I run up a £2700 bill. Fuel, Food, Labour and any other cost that went on my card that weekend got forwarded on. & I got my pictures.. Also before I forget, many thanks to Brendan on here for getting me a number plate for the trailer. Complete legend as always.













Got back to the UK, sent them off, they're happy that the car wasn't modified and they'll arrange the reimbursement.. Oh wait a minute.. another problem.

Sainsburys insurance came back and said they believe I was already in France when I took out my policy. Urgh. I sent in my booking documents. No response. Got an email saying they rejected my claim. Turns out they lost the email in their system (only found that this week).

I appeal, then they see my boarding documents and say "because I had already left my house when I took out the policy, its not valid". I ask them to show me the terms and conditions where it states where I can and can't be when I can take out my policy, "Oh yeah, its on page 13 of the T&C's".. Sweet I said, send them to me. A week later, I got them. Nowhere in the terms and conditions does it state where you can and can't be when you take out the policy. Green Flag and Sainsburys terms and conditions have been flawed in one foul swoop. It however states the countries you can go to that they cover. Winner.

My final letter went in before the bullshit stopped.

I am writing to you, that despite previous attempts, there remains an outstanding debt of £2748.89 stated in the previous correspondents (18th April 2015 & 28th April 2015). This debt was due for payment by Tuesday 5th May 2015, yet no payment has been received.

The debt is in relation to the failure of the service provided by yourselves due to false assumptions over my personal car being modified and then furthermore the location in which I upgraded the policy. I have proved I was in the UK when the phone call was made, and offered to prove the car was in good mechanical condition when it left the UK.

If the sum outstanding is not paid within 7 days of this letter, I will have no other choice than to begin legal action without warning to recover the outstanding debt using the UK Small Claims Court procedure. I will seek to recover the costs of the procedure in addition to the debt above along with my hours that I will have to work on the case.

I have attached my expenses to show the costs of the recovery, including Ross Dagley-Cleworth’s labour over the 3 day period and my labour charged at my ‘out of working hours’ rate. The recovery of the Vehicle (LG57 VAH) from Welcherath, Germany was carried out by us as it was refused by Green Flag as an assumption that the car was modified, which since has been proven false, and the second attempt to recover the debt was again refused as another assumption was made that I was outside of the UK when the policy was upgraded, again since been proven false. Despite the latter, no express clause has been stated within the policies terms and conditions disputing the location. It would be irrelevant as I was based in the UK when the call was made.

As I have recently received an email stating that you cannot find a record of my email on the 23rd April 2015, I have attached a hard copy for your reference. Also please find attached my Data Access Request form, please note I will make a specific reference to Leslie’s comments that customers can take out European cover whilst on the ferry (9/4/2015), and also Jonathan’s comments that as long as I hadn’t disembarked in France, it is okay to take out European cover (4/4/2015 18:30).

I get a phone call to say my claim has been accepted, Green Flag and Sainsburys admit full liability. Turns out they didn't have an express clause stipulated anywhere within their terms and conditions about the location of where you can and can't be when taking out the policy. Nor anywhere in their policies about car modifications. Infact, as I upgraded my policy instead of took out a policy, a lot of the shit they gave me was exempt. I'm expecting a cheque any day this week.

Note for future, even the biggest companies have legal loopholes. Was it worth it? Germany and back in a day. Yes.

I haven't lost a legal battle yet, Leydon Vs. Carshop went to court with the BMW, Leydon Vs. Evans Halshaw about the Astra was settled before court, paid me a full refund on a car I had for 9 months, Leydon Vs. Sainsburys Green Flag, tore into their flaws and job's done. Was it worth the stress? Maybe, but I can see why people give up, depression, upset and anger but the financial gain (despite not making any profit from this) I still get to put some money towards the car repairs.

Originally Posted by Stissy

Seems like an absolute nightmare. I feel for you, every car you buy seems to break or have other major issues. Good luck in getting everything sorted .

Don't worry, I bring these things upon myself.

[simmo]

What a fook about! You do seem to have some shite luck with your cars!

I took out holiday insurance as i was sat on the plane in the airport. £3k bill from mexico paid out no problem. Cant see how they could stipulate where you should be when taking out insurance.