I purchased an Audi A4 Mulitronic in Jan 2010. In July the car started to "judder" when pulling away and sometimes when accelerating. I reported the fault to my warranty company, who told me to take it to my local Audi dealer for diagnosis. They reported that the gearbox was failing and needed to be replaced at a cost of £5000-plus. The warranty company said that the gearbox would have to be stripped for their engineer to inspect. As Audi would not do this, the car was transported to a gearbox specialist. Once stripped, the gearbox was inspected and they said that the gearbox had no faults, and that the judder was a known Audi fault and that Audi had modified the gearbox design to correct this. On this basis the problem should be referred back to Audi so my warranty claim for the gearbox was refused.

However, when I said i would instruct the inspector to re-assemble the gearbox and put it back in the car, they said that if I did that it would invalidate the warranty as I had reported the judder. In the event I have had to pay £3700 for the redesigned parts to be installed in the gearbox. I believe that the warranty company is in breach of contract because if they knew that there was a problem with this gearbox I should have been told about it before taking out the warranty. The car has a full service history, although not all of it is with an Audi dealer. Have you any suggestions?