Interior Delamination On Buttons Etc...

[Steven682004]

The interior of my 2003 A4 1.8T is peeling and delaminating. It looks like all the controls and coomponent buttons have some sort of covering and in my car it is wearing off. I understand that there will be some wear over the course of the cars life, but it only has 20,000 miles on it and one driver.

I have brought the car back to the dealership where I purchased it to have them evauluate the interior for warranty replacement and was told that Audi would't warranty the interior because they consider the interior of the car to have outside influences.

Has anyone seen this problem before and what steps did they take with Audi in getting it fixed?

[rix1974]

I have had the same problem with the same outcome. My ESP button started delaminating...I went as far as contacting Audi customer service, and they told me it was up to the dealership whether or not it would be covered under warranty. They would not cover it, and a new one was $85. I just removed it, painted it in flat black and put it back. It looks better, but still bothers me.

[AOV]

Is it just the 2003's just because ours is a 2003 and the buttons have the same problem, looks awful. Trying to sell it as well....would someone understand that this is a problem that one has to overlook?

[simsam18]

Originally Posted by AOV

Is it just the 2003's just because ours is a 2003 and the buttons have the same problem, looks awful. Trying to sell it as well....would someone understand that this is a problem that one has to overlook?

It's gotten better but has not gone completely away. I had a 2003 A4 until last year and I had the radio, the headlight knob, the floor vents, and the driver's window buttons replaced under the factory warranty. Once they were replaced, I didn't have any issues afterwards. I now have a 2006 A4 which had a very light issue with that around the radio area and was told that those issues were now only covered for 1 year. Apparently, Audi must have gotten tired of replacing those shoddy parts.

I'm not sure exactly what the cause is. Heat and sun may be one issue (my car was in Southern California when the problem was at its worst). Long fingernails probably don't help, and a service advisor told me at a dealership that lotion will take that stuff off as well.

As far as overlooking it, I guess it depends how much you care about that stuff and how hard it is to fix. Replacing a few radio knobs doesn't cost that much, but replacing the radio itself? That's another story. Of course, a 2003 A4 is likely going to have much bigger issues than button peeling to worry about (I speak from experience )