Coilover failure advice please

[L1J]

Need some opinions/advice on the below please, apologies in advance for the long post.

As part of a group buy on AudiSRS.com a number of us purchased a set of coilovers for the B5 S4/RS4 models.

The kit cost £1430 fitted.

Of the 7 kits I know that have been fiited the following problems have occured:

3 completley failed front damper units, 2 photos below

Front spring perch cracked

Rear spring rubbing against rear damper

Numerous leaking units after less than 18 months use that need to be removed a sent back for a rebuild. This has happened to two of my dampers.

Due to all these faults I sent the following email to the company on the 01/04/13:

It has been brought to my attention that there have been a number of failures of the suspension kits supplied by yourselves on the Audi B5 platform.

Please see the forum threads below:

http://audisrs.com/about42412.html

http://www.audiaddict.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4282

The pictures show the front dampers failing in the same place.

There are a number of us that have your suspension fitted on the B5 platform and are seriously concerned about these failures. The consequences could be catastrophic if they failed at speed.

The units on my car have been removed due to two dampers having failed seals that have leaked gas after roughly 16k miles of road use, I have spoken to you about this and am in the process of sending them back, however after seeing these failures I am not confident having them refitted to my car.

These were marketed as the best suspension setup available for the B5 and when I asked how often they needed a rebuild you stated about 50k miles between rebuilds which I thought was acceptable.

It is worrying that a suspension kit that cost £1450 needs constant attention and could fail to such a dangerous state. I do not believe they are fit for the purpose they were sold for.

I would like assurance from you that a similar failure will not happen on the other sets fitted to the B5 platform and if this cannot be given then what are you going to do to resolve this matter satisfactorily for all those with these units fitted?

I hope that this issue can be resolved quickly and without further damage to your reputation.

Thanks

I received the following a few hours later:

Hi,
I'm currently away until Friday, however, I have already thought of a cure for this which I will discuss with Dennis when I'm back, I have included him in this mail to keep him aware.

Kind Regards

I received nothing then and on the 12/04 and 19/04 I sent the following emails

XXXXX,

Any update on the below, it has been over 10 days since your email below.

Llyr


XXXXX,

I still haven't received a reply for the below.

The lack of communication from you isn't helping this situation. If I don't receive a reply I will return the suspension and expect a full refund. Having £1450 worth of suspension sitting around doing nothing is not acceptable to me.

Llyr

I didn't receive a reply to either of those emails so the following was sent to the General Manager of the parent company in Holland on the 25/04/13:

Dennis,

I have received no reply from XXXXX regarding the problems below, can you please respond.

As stated below, if I don't receive a reply I will return the suspension for a full refund plus any costs incurred to myself.

I have given you a reasonable amount of time to resolve this matter.

If this isn't resolved to my satisfaction I will raise a claim in the small claims court against AST UK.

Regards

and finally received a reply on the 26/04/13

Hello Llyr



Let me give you an update.



So far we have checked the existing dampers and made a new front shock.

At the moment we hired a company who is looking into it if the new dampers are strong enough.

I understand that you want a quick solution for your problem but we want to be sure this will never happen again.

At the moment we have two options :

-Front dampers with the same design you already have but stronger ( after the extern company checked the strength of this damper).

-Front damper like the OEM dampers, this means it is difficult to adjust these dampers cause the adjust knob is on top of this damper.



Next week Wednesday I will receive the rapport for option 1 and after that we will report you what we will do.



Again I hope you understand we do everything we can to solve this issue but we need time to come up with a good solutions.





Check our new website for the latest products and news!!!!!!!!!!



Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards

Dennis XXXXX

General Manager

I haven't heard anything since and have lost any confidence in the company being able to resolve this. I would not be happy with any of these units fitted to my car after this experience. So I followed up with an email stating that I will return the coilovers next week and expect a full refund. I haven't received a reply to this either.

The two options I can see now are to either send them back and hope for a refund or wait for further updates.

Any other options available to me that I've missed?

Where do I stand legally with this?

Advice welcome, this is a most frustrating experience.

 

[Will]

Whoever designed those should have a word with themselves, clearly not fit for purpose with prolonged use...I have never seen dampers so thin at the bottom!

It does not surprise me to see they are AST units either, I have read a fair few threads about their coilovers where the design needs to be 'tweaked' later due to people having problems.

Legally I guess to an extent it depends how long people have had them before failure, in terms of what you are entitled to...do you know how old the broken ones were? Like the threads suggest, I'd be going down the trading standards and/or VOSA route myself.

 

[p1RATE]

I think this is a situation where it would help to pick up a phone?

I deal with people ignoring emails all the time and just have to hassle them with daily follow ups and phone calls

 

[Gaijin]

Jesus, nearly £1500 fitted for that.

Wouldn't that get you reknowned, quality suspension from a trusted supplier such as Koni, KW, Bilstein, H&R etc?