A man who bought a used import Audi A8 turned up at an Audi dealer in Auckland to tease salesman about the money he had saved on a comparable New Zealand-new example. A technician invited the fellow to have the luxury four-door plugged into a diagnostic computer to make sure everything was hunky-dory. The computer screen lit up. Oops! One, the airbags had been disconnected. Two, that didn’t work. Three, this didn’t work … and so on. “It looked like a ticker-tape parade after we had printed out all the faults,” said the technician, who is no longer with Audi and didn’t want to be named. “The fellow didn’t know what to say.” Audi NZ checked out the car’s history. It was an original right-hand-drive model registered to an Audi dealership in France, whose boss often drove the car back and forth to Britain. Audi NZ got hold of the dealer in France and asked for further information. Back came some photos. The technician phoned the NZ buyer and asked him to come into the office. “When he arrived I said he had better sit down, that he was not going to like what he’d see. “I put the photos on the desk. His face went white. They showed his A8 parked at the back of the dealership in France – and there was hardly anything left of it from the windscreen forward. “It had been in major accident on a motorway and written off by French insurers. “Someone had bought it as a wreck and rebuilt it to sell in dumping-ground New Zealand. Really, the car is worthless.” The A8 sat in the Auckland man’s driveway for ages while he tried to get his
money back. It is still in Auckland. Motor Industry Association CEO David Crawford said the Audi rip-off is another example of “real potential for safety lapses unless it has been repaired by a professional and undergone full re-certification.” “All vehicles that have been written off overseas and imported into New Zealand to be repaired and on sold, should be black-flagged at the border and not be able to gain a Warrant of Fitness until it can be shown that they meet all required safety standards.”