Audi warranty denial....

Housey said:
I’d stick this into What Car or some other journal who likes to represent the reader v the manufacturer. At the moment all I see is an insurer doing their best to get out of paying and in doing so setting a precedent that someone has probably challenged before.
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Yes I think you have a point. Car alarms have been fitted for years to vehicles to stop them being stolen, how can this be seen as being a negative?

I've had people in this thread calling me an idiot for wanting to protect something that I 'own' with an immobiliser. Saying I should happily use my insurance if it were to be stolen. Why should I bare the additional cost of a stolen car and all that goes with it if I can avoid it? Only someone that has not experienced car theft can say something as callous as that...

Autowatch have been notified and I have included the main dealers report with the email. I am awaiting a response which should hopefully be with me in the coming days.
 
How much did the ghost cost vs how much would your premium go up? I'd just worry if someone wants it, they might be waking you instead (although I can't imagine a diesel audi being stolen to order).
 
theone8181 said:
How much did the ghost cost vs how much would your premium go up? I'd just worry if someone wants it, they might be waking you instead (although I can't imagine a diesel audi being stolen to order).
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Its a £50k + car. The right (wrong) people can make at least £20k for a nights work taking one and selling it once it’s been chopped. Do you know many people earning £20k a week?
 
hurfdurf said:
Its a £50k + car. The right (wrong) people can make at least £20k for a nights work taking one and selling it once it’s been chopped. Do you know many people earning £20k a week?
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Its a black edition as well.... Trust me this car would have no problem disappearing and my little town has had its own spate of car thefts over the years. For my M5 they came into the house for the keys but didn't come upstairs. The guys that came for that knew exactly what they were doing as well to defeat the door lock on the house, etc. Following that episode I got a house alarm, cameras, etc, etc....
 
Surely they’d just force you to unlock the system by knife point or whatever they use? I mean if they’re prepared to break into your house who knows?
 
turbo said:
Its a black edition as well.... Trust me this car would have no problem disappearing and my little town has had its own spate of car thefts over the years. For my M5 they came into the house for the keys but didn't come upstairs. The guys that came for that knew exactly what they were doing as well to defeat the door lock on the house, etc. Following that episode I got a house alarm, cameras, etc, etc....
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Better to let them take the car IMO vs fitting a ghost. I wouldn’t want to be standing and banging with some of the car thief crews who don’t mind violence as part of the theft. Most don’t, but you never know who is coming after yours.
 
turbo said:
Its a black edition as well.... Trust me this car would have no problem disappearing and my little town has had its own spate of car thefts over the years. For my M5 they came into the house for the keys but didn't come upstairs. The guys that came for that knew exactly what they were doing as well to defeat the door lock on the house, etc. Following that episode I got a house alarm, cameras, etc, etc....
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Same. Broke into the house and went straight for the keys of my M5 (which thankfully were downstairs, else they'd have come up next). Even left my wallet with cash in it right next to the keys. Surprisingly, insurance paid out far more than I was expecting and my next year's renewal wasn't affected either.
 
ChrisD. said:
Surely they’d just force you to unlock the system by knife point or whatever they use? I mean if they’re prepared to break into your house who knows?
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I suppose that could be one way of looking at it. In the meantime the house alarm is going off, my wife would be kicking off, etc, etc. I have no doubt that if a knife is against my throat for the car I'm helping them take it but your going to have to be pretty clued up to come into my house whilst the alarm is going off, with me and my wife up, the street woken up and then have me standing at the top of my stairs telling you to come at me...

I'm no Rambo but the odds are against them in this scenario...

If I was a thief I would just look for the next house that doesn't have obvious deterrents visible from the road and go for that instead...
 
turbo said:
I suppose that could be one way of looking at it. In the meantime the house alarm is going off, my wife would be kicking off, etc, etc. I have no doubt that if a knife is against my throat for the car I'm helping them take it but your going to have to be pretty clued up to come into my house whilst the alarm is going off, with me and my wife up, the street woken up and then have me standing at the top of my stairs telling you to come at me...

I'm no Rambo but the odds are against them in this scenario...

If I was a thief I would just look for the next house that doesn't have obvious deterrents visible from the road and go for that instead...
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Surely you’d just give someone the car in that scenario? It’s really not worth the risk just to be a bit macho.
 
fezster said:
Assuming this is the Ghost product installed, pretty clear cut in terms of their position on this:

https://www.sasmobile.co.uk/tech-details/Autowatch-Ghost-FAQs




First step is for Audi to make categorically clear that they are voiding the warranty because of the Ghost. Second step is to use that as a stick to get the Ghost manufacturer to prove otherwise (given their stated claims).
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If audi confirms its the ghost... ghost will have to remove that statement...which will really pee them off
 
adding to product credentials does look like there is an eu approval certificate for can immobilisers - similar product, apparently sister/repackaged -
https://pdf.ampire.de/ampire/WFS400-SMART_zulassung.pdf
https://www.ampire.de/WFS400-PRO.htm?SessionId=&a=article&ProdNr=WFS400-PRO&p=59260

[incidentally - same tech can be deployed for mileage blockers ! googling
It became apparent that the key to manipulating the odometer is to duplicate the odometer incrementation signal. And, in theory, doing so with a minimal length of time between increments should cause the odometer readout to increase more rapidly.
....
In order to achieve a rapid incrementation of the odometer, it was determined that the optimal span between each increment of the byte 7 value was 8 messages, or a time interval of 80ms. When the byte 7 value was incremented more frequently than once every 80ms, some of the increment requests were actually ignored and the odometer readout would increment at a much slower rate.
]
 
ChrisD. said:
Surely they’d just force you to unlock the system by knife point or whatever they use? I mean if they’re prepared to break into your house who knows?
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lol could you imagine trying desperately to explain the thief whilst your in your birthday suit - "DOUBLE TAP PHONE, SINGLE TAP RECIRCULATE, SWITCH LIGHTS ON AND OFF THREE TIMES".

I'd defo wet myself.
 
I think adding additional immobilisation to modern cars is counterproductive. If they want it to the extent that they are going to track me to my home, break in with menace if needs be and then steal my car then fill your boots. It is insured, it’s just a car and putting myself or family at risk for protection of a car is pointless. I am all for not letting people get away with stuff like this, but having been tracked by professional car thief’s who were intending to break into my house and and who might have been violent to get my keys I would rather they just got the keys and went away. Better idea is make your home really hard to find and have a garage that is not easily associated with your house.
 
I didn't mean to offend, it just didn't strike me as a car stolen to order (unless another soccer mum really wants one:D). I'd have thought that the RR on that list would be fine with the built in in immobiliser (read broken down:p).
 
jpaul said:
adding to product credentials does look like there is an eu approval certificate for can immobilisers - similar product, apparently sister/repackaged -
https://pdf.ampire.de/ampire/WFS400-SMART_zulassung.pdf
https://www.ampire.de/WFS400-PRO.htm?SessionId=&a=article&ProdNr=WFS400-PRO&p=59260

[incidentally - same tech can be deployed for mileage blockers ! googling
It became apparent that the key to manipulating the odometer is to duplicate the odometer incrementation signal. And, in theory, doing so with a minimal length of time between increments should cause the odometer readout to increase more rapidly.
....
In order to achieve a rapid incrementation of the odometer, it was determined that the optimal span between each increment of the byte 7 value was 8 messages, or a time interval of 80ms. When the byte 7 value was incremented more frequently than once every 80ms, some of the increment requests were actually ignored and the odometer readout would increment at a much slower rate.
]
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the difference with a mileage blocker is if found you have no warranty and you definately buying the car . had a customer try it with a merc s class mileage blocker went faulty dashboard looked like blackpool illuminations so many warning lights. dealer had it recovered and found blocker, then found dash board had been damaged so fitted a new one , charged him nearly a grand for their work , and mercedes finance asked for the car to be paid in full as the warranty was void (tampered with ) and they didnt want the car back as would not be able to resell it knowing the mileage had been played with.
all that to save a few grand on mileage needless to say the mileage company just stopped answering the phone.

by the way it is illegal to have a blocker or stopper or mileage tampered with if the car is under any form of lease or hire agreement ie motorbility as well.

and most manufactures have units set up for any lease vehicles that may be suspect to go to for inspection, bmw and mercedes are extremely hot on it.
 
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gc123 said:
had a customer try it with a merc s class mileage blocker went faulty dashboard looked like blackpool illuminations so many warning lights. dealer had it recovered and found blocker,
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so do you get spurious/unexpected events in the ecu logs, or, whilst monitoring canbus traffic ?
ie. beyond the warning lights are additional devices quickly obvious.
 
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