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Martin Interesting post re the costs and benefits....or pitfalls....of using an Audi specialist to service and maintain your car rather than an Audi Main Dealership. May I record my experiences of using an Audi Specialist Independent. I have owned 4 Audis in the past 20 years, all bought from new . An Audi A8, 2 Q8's and my present car, a 2026 S5 Avant. I am a fastidous owner and like to keep my cars in the very best condition. Not a fan at all of Audis....or any other main stream manufactures " long term servicing regimes ". Hence I generally have and have had a service and most imprortantly an oil change every 7 / 8000 miles. I have never used an Audi Main dealer for any services all 4 cars. The reasons are that I am fortunate to have near a superb Audi Independent Garage that I know and trust. Of course their servicing rates are a fraction of what Audi charge but more importantly to me , I truly believe that my cars are better looked and maintained to a higher standard than at the Audi garage. Also may I just add that the premise that by going down the Independent route, could affect the cars resale has not been the case with me. On my last 2 Q8's I did what most folk do and went on the WeBuyAnyCars website to find out a rough resale value . I then found a couple of Indendent dealers who specialised in more " higher end " pre owned cars. Both were pretty exacting on what cars they would actually put on their website and both were quite happy that the cars had been service their entire lives with an Independent. On both cars the important and deciding factor with the Dealers was that the Independent had a known reputation, used genuine Audi parts and was able to log on and record the services on the Audi Sevice regimes. And in fact, on both cars I was offered more than the WeBuyAnycars recommended price. So I think the main dealer stamp in the old service book was quite important once but not so much now. Just my 2 penneth.

Hello Peter, Wondering why you aren’t returning this under-warranty vehicle to the dealer, rather than getting paid-for 3rd party involvement -? Regards, Gareth.

The lock is called SFD and any car post 19 that is VAG has it, most garage scanners won't touch it except if they have a newer platform software VCDS or similar OBDEleven pro which is the cheapest option, what are they trying to repair. Steve.