LucyB

Thanks so much, Gareth. In the end I rang the garage and he thinks he can do it on Monday morning. So very different from the days when you just undid the terminals and replaced the battery.

Thankyou so much for this. It's around 5 years old but I will definitely follow up on what you've said when I've finished painting the kitchen! Very best, Lucy

Hello All - My battery has died and I'm all set to replace it myself. We jumpstarted the car last week and despite it initially sending me a lot of mad messages about nothing working, once I got it going and drove a mile, it was all fine. 2 days later, battery flat again. Mu question is, if I disconnect the old battery and replace it, will all my computer settings be lost?

Thought so. Thanks, Steve.

Hopeless. Can't get any clear information out of anyone, least of all the guy who thinks he's going to sell me the car (a dealer). So guess what? I'm not going to buy it but how true is it that most post 2020 A3 S line hatchbacks are mild hybrids and what does that even mean? I want a car that will drive 300 miles up a motorway relatively cheaply. Wouldn't the hybrid (when such a mild one) make that more expensive and the electronics of the car even more compicated and expensive to fix? Are they all mild hybrids?

Thankyou.

Thanks. Is it realistic when buying a used car that has been leased to be able to have evidence/paper trail or digital of all the work that has been done on it. They guy I'm buying it from said you don't get access to that until you've bought it (I think he meant to Audi's digital record). That strikes me as completely mad but then the world does seem to be completely mad. Thanks for your help here. It really is giving me some orientation.

Will doi and thankyou. Won't this have been done during one of the services if it's been serviced through Audi?

Hello all, I'm about to buy a 2020 A3 from a dealer who has good reviews. It's done 50 000 miles and has a FSH. It's November 2020 so the later model. It was leased. It has had one new telematics unit recently and a new selector switch but apart from that, nothing. When I go and drive it and look at it, what should I be checking/looming out for? Thanks very much. (It's a 1.5 TFSI 35 S line Sportback 5dr Petrol S Tronic Euro 6 (s/s) (150 ps)). I'll be back this afternoon.

You've got nothing else to do , have you?

Thankyou. That's helpful info.

You're finding this time consuming? I tried to end it ages ago. If the guy had said, 'no, it doesn't have a FSH' (this is Bath Audi - they claim they ALL have a FSH) we'd have known where we were from the start. He didn't. I'd say (and this is a literal definition) that it is 'reasonable' to reply to a question with a logical answer instead of wasting a whole days concentration and £20 on b* But hey - I'm a socialist.

Yup. It's gorn. I'm left pretty shocked. Isn't there some central Audi body I can complain to?

The motorcheck.co.uk report is OKish, but left us with two significant questions: why was the vehicle driven only 300 miles last year, and why is it presently under an active finance agreement from Volkswagen, commencing as recently as last month? It's not too difficult to come up with a scenario to explain this odd situation, but it would have been a lot easier if they'd just told us in the first place. While we're at it: the MOT record shows that the car has received attention at a garage other than the Audi workshop on at least one and likely two occasions. As no record of this work appears in the Audi service history, we have to conclude that the repairs must have been done at a non-Audi approved garage. Once again, this isn't necessarily enough to put us off the car, but it would have been a lot easier all round if they'd explained things clearly. I'd say the whole point about paying over the odds is that I don't have to do any work. It would have come with a years warranty plus various things I don't actually want or need (AA roadside etc. ) and a 9 month MOT and a 3 zillion point check. In fact I'm now left simply not trusting a word these salespeople say (not that I did anyway). So the private thing, though fraught, means we would do the work, pay people to look at it, etc. etc. and know exactly what we were getting. I'd also get more money for my old car. I actively wanted an A3 older than 2020 because the spec looks better and this one has a mileage of only 19000.

Thankyou, Clifford, I suspect you are right. Having now spent yet another several hours, we have discovered that no less than 8 people have checked the car in the last month on motorcheck.co.uk Some pretty weird findings, too. Appalling to find that authorised dealers just can't be trusted. I guess we'll now have to do all the work for ourselves and buy privately. Thankyou all so much for your help.