The vehicle’s definition of “limited performance” actually translated to no performance whatsoever, so I was lucky to be able to pull up safely at the entrance to a rural driveway. Once stopped I decided “actually I’ll move it forward 2m to give the house owner more space to get in and out”. Non. Zero drive.
A quick look underneath suggested some fluid was leaking out towards the front of the car – not a very pleasant smelling one.
Well that’s not looking good.
Called the AA and asked that they just send a flat-bed. Zero drive. 2.7 tonne car. Fluid leaking – it’s not going to be possible to do a roadside repair. Computer said no, so I waited 3hrs for a patrol to arrive, who looked at it, smelt it, and said “I’m not even going to touch it mate”
. Another 75mins for a sub-contracted flat bed to recover the car to their holding yard for delivery to the dealership on Monday morning, and mrs mik came to pick me up. In the Evora. A car she has driven for a total of approximately 1.5 miles, when I got it 8 years ago.…erk. Luckily she, and the Evora, all of it's gearbox ratios, and all originally fitted pistons & valves etc arrived unscathed. Phew.
Audi have now taken a look and declared that the front motor has lost it’s coolant and is now junk. Yes the entire motor unit. A new replacement motor is over £6k.
Yikes. The car is 3.5 years old, with 30k on the clock. Now you might suggest that it seems rather crazy that something as simple as a coolant loss would junk the whole motor, but I believe the likely issue is an internal seal failure, so coolant has sloshed around internal electrical bits that should not be exposed to said fluid. It’s a pretty significant “zero warning” failure though. I’ve always been suspicious of the value of extended manufacturer warranties, but I thank all of the fooks that I decided to proceed with Audi’s offer for an extra year on the E-Tron. Partly ‘cos it was a decent price, and partly ‘cos EV’s are still relatively new tech in the grand scheme of things, hence I thought it was prudent. Phew.
Replacement under extended warranty now confirmed. Unsurprisingly the dealership (who have been excellent so far) don’t have one in stock, but they reckon a new motor should be here on or before Monday. Hire car to cover us until it’s fixed will be delivered to us tomorrow (via Audi).
So we (appear to) have lucked out this time. Some people might suggest however that this doesn’t appear to be a particularly good advert for EV’s. I might agree with them. A quick web search suggests that this is also an issue for Tesla and presumably all other manufacturers who use fluid-cooled drive motors, but thankfully it appears that some companies are starting to offer motor strip down and repair - hopefully avoiding similarly costly component failures writing off aging EV’s in the near future.
