Our Audi A1, a mere 4 years old, spontaneously caught fire and burned out in January. It started with choking, noxious fumes inside the car. Had stopping instantly not been an option (on a motorway? Or heavy traffic?) these may have quickly overcome the driver.
Only a few minutes later, and properly ablaze, the car self-locked all its doors and then fired its airbags as the electrics melted – rendering a rescue almost impossible, as the doors wouldn’t unlock. Had the driver still been inside (unconscious with fumes?) this could have caused injury or death, let alone making it more difficult to get out.
The Audi dealer was most helpful. He implied that Audi, as a brand, would be concerned about their product self-igniting, and self-locking. He suggested that Audi would make every effort to ‘keep us in the brand’ and compensate for the trauma, cost and inconvenience of losing our car to fire. And that Audi engineers would investigate to find the cause, in the interests of safety for all, as well as ‘closure’ for us.
Well, Audi, were these all empty words? Your engineers “can’t find the cause”. Are you implying that it could be our fault?? Or just in denial and trying to avoid responsibility?
