I want to share my story about Audi Central Houston

I recently visited Audi Central at 2120 Southwest Fwy, Houston, TX 77098 on Tuesday May 11th. This was absolutely the worst experience I have ever had at a car dealership, or probably any customer service experience of my life, anywhere. To give context, I drive a 2014 Audi Q5 and I had just moved back to Houston after living 4 years in Asheville, NC. I had purchased my Q5 from Audi Central 4 years earlier, and while we had a great experience with Torbin, the young man who sold me the car at that time, he was complaining about his work-life at the dealership, and had left the company within a couple months after selling me the vehicle.

Now I am back in Houston and need to get new registration, so I called Audi Central to schedule a State vehicle inspection. I get to Audi and the lady who is scheduled to handle my inspection was, to say the least, extremely rude. She looks pissed to be there, she was very short with me and didn’t answer a single question I had. No worries, it’s just a state inspection and I’ll be out of there in no time. But my car is coming up on 100,000 miles and it’s almost paid off, so I am interested in purchasing a new car. So while I am waiting for my inspection, which ends up keeping me at the dealership for nearly three hours, I sit down with a salesman to appraise my car and see what they have available.

Now, I had no personal issue with this salesman, and this isn’t super relevant to the poor experience I had, but this dude was coked up. I mean like, dude just walked away to the bathroom while we were talking, shot up a line, and came back out. Like he was so obvious about it, it was weird. He was not very aggressive to sell me a car, infact, the attitude was very much uninterested in selling a car at all if it was going to take any work for him. He basically wanted me to tell him exactly what I wanted, instead of shopping around for what was available with me, infact he literally said “I don’t want to be looking up cars for you.” Again, that’s fine, it’s just surprising to see that kind of attitude at a car dealership where you typically expect top notch customer service and salesmanship. But I wasn’t necessarily needing to buy a car that day, so whatever.

This is where it gets bad. I finally get my car back and get it home and as I walk around the car in my lot I notice something missing…

The front right black plastic vent piece that goes over the fog lights was gone… Ripped off my car and stolen. I went back to the dealership the next morning (they were already closed when I noticed) and found the service manager, Michael. I told him what had happened, and he told me to go wait in the lobby while he looked for it. I came back to his office 10 minutes later and he was looking at the footage of the camera in the driveway looking for my car to pull in or out. I told him that is not where it went missing, but that it was likely in the garage where they serviced my vehicle. It’s almost like he was looking at the footage to see if there was proof that the piece was on my car when I came in, instead of actually looking for the vent. I told him I needed to go and that he could call me when he found it. Next afternoon, which is now Thursday, I still had no call from him, so I called him. He did not answer, I left a voicemail. Friday now, still no call back, so I called him, no answer, I left another voicemail. I drove into the dealership on Saturday morning and Michael was not in, but Grisel was, the woman who serviced my vehicle. I asked her if she had heard about my missing bumper, and she told me that Michael had told her he had taken care of it. I assured her, nothing had been taken care of and that I was still missing my bumper. She wrote down my number and told me they would call me on Monday to take care of this. I told her I just need a new damn part ordered.

I actually went to Audi Sewell in Sugar Land, Texas later this day on Saturday, and had a great experience and ended up trading in my Q5 and getting a lease.

Monday comes around, and I still get no call from Audi.

Now that I no longer have the car, I have no need for the part or any resolution for that matter. I am just glad I don’t have to deal with them anymore. But I can’t just let them slide and get away with that. This has to be the trashiest dealership I have ever experienced in my life.

Now that I have told other Audi drivers in Houston of this experience, they have all told me they don’t go to this dealership either. Apparently the vibe there is that they don’t care about customer service or selling cars, because some rich person from River Oaks will come in and buy a car anyway. But I am not writing this for hearsay. I want to describe my personal experience.

I am writing this for Audi corporate, Audi Financial, Audi drivers, Houston residents on Google reviews and DealerRater… This Audi Central dealership needs a COMPLETE makeover. This ruined my experience with Audi, luckily I love how those cars drive and Audi Sewell saved the day. But I will never again go to that dealership, and I hope Audi reads this and does something about it. Because it really ruined the brand for me and could have been worse if I hadn’t just gotten rid of the car and stopped dealing with it. Who knows if I would’ve ever gotten my car part back.

TL;DR: Audi Central stole a part off my car, won’t do anything about. Trashy dealership.