Originally Posted by jfo

Let me clarify my scary and misleading comments.
He asked about mod friendly dealers and flagging, which suggests he is talking about engine tuning/flashing the ECU, since there has been much discussion about this recent development on other forum. I should have been more specific.
Audi issued a TSB to dealers in March that advised them the Audi diagnostic system will now auto-detect ECU changes on many current year models, like the B8. It runs in the background and is transparent to the tech. If it finds an ECU flash it will log a TD1 flag for that VIN, which may affect warranty on drive train related issues. There have been numerous reports of this flag having been set by AZ forum members and according to a number of the reports, the dealer cannot control this. Apparently, putting your flash into "stealth mode" will not hide it from the diagnostic scan. You would need to re flash back to stock before going to the dealer for service. If the tech finds other, non-ECU power train mod's, including mod's like cold air intake and even short shifters, he is instructed to manually log the TD1 flag. For these, perhaps a mod friendly dealer would not log the flag.
This TSB only refers to engine tuning and does does not mention routine VAG Com mod's, etc that are often just changes to options that already exist in various modules. I have a VAG Com cable and have done many of these changes.

I gather it's common practise for tech's to plug into the Audi system to check for any updates, TSB's etc for your VIN, even though you may be just getting an oil change.

Perhaps your dad is not up to date on this issue?

Originally Posted by reaL

You are wrong in telling people they are aggressively scanning and voiding warranties. It was a technical service bulletin by audi which sounds worse than what it really is. Yes a flag may or may not show based on what it detects... Will they void a warranty? Only if the problem you bring it in for is directly related... nothing more nothing less even after they tell you it isn't covered you can go back for something totally unrelated and it still be covered. Audi will not turn you away if the problem is legitimately Audi's fault.