My 2007 Audi A3 is less than four years old, has done less than 34,000 miles and has a full Audi service history. Last week the ESP warning light came on so I tried to book an appointment with my local Audi dealership, when I was told that it wouldn't be a serious safety issue, and that it would be fine for them to look it over in a couple of weeks. Happily reassured, I left it at that, before calling again a couple of days later to see if any time slots had become available, which luckily they had. Unfortunately it appeared that there was a fault with the ABS control unit, and it would cost a tidy £1,000 to replace. After they saw my jaw drop to the floor, they mentioned that Audi could make a goodwill gesture towards half the cost.

While I somewhat appreciated this gesture, I couldn't help feeling there was something fishy about the speed at which the price was halved - quite literally a matter of seconds and I tried to leave. Except, they wouldn't let me. After initially telling me that there couldn't possibly be a serious problem and that a fortnight's wait would pose no harm, the garage insisted it was not in a safe state to drive, and would not give me back my keys until I had signed a waiver absolving them of any liability. I had no choice but to sign, but it felt like a rather cheap sales trick. When I read online about VAG offering to cover the full cost of many replacements of cars much older than mine, and checked the manual for any indications that a lack of ABS was inherently unsafe (actually, it specifically tells you not to rely on ABS for safety purposes) it felt even more like a tactic to force me to commit to buying the replacement part there and then. Am I going mad?