RE: Audi RS6 Performance: Review

[urquattroGus]

In my view the C6 V10 was a bit of an overweight pig compared to both the C5 and C7 (yes I've driven all three)

Can't deny the tuning potential of the V10, but that's about it as far as I'm concerned.

The C5 was lower volume and felt a bit more bespoke somehow, loved that alcantara headling, carbon airbox etc

[Shnozz]

hondansx said:

The steering and sport differential really disguise it's weight, but you are certainly reminded of the size when parking. Within a a couple of weeks of owning it i had done a trip to Ikea, been to the dump and used it for my wedding. It really does tick every box and, yep, i have picked my moments and used its performance reguarly. As the review suggests, it's also just nice to know you are sitting on a missle; no one messes with you, that's for sure. Especially since i have pimped mine out...

I agree in it disguising its weight. The brakes are phenomenal given it has 2 tonnes of mass to haul to a stop (often from easily disguised big speeds too) but, again, you can feel the weight of the beast under heavy braking purely in terms of weight transfer - but hardly a surprise there.

The size when parking it is something else. As Dave Hedgehog says, it more than fills a standard parking space. My underground parking space at home is a reasonable size (as I say, my mates T5 camper parks in there with no issue) and yet the RS6 poked out by a foot over the front. Was worried the neighbour would side swipe the front end where it projected so much.

I appreciate its not a rational car by any means, and long may these sort of cars live on. My comments re a TDI version were based on the fact that if you weren't pressing on in it, it does feel kind of feel like you aren't utlising what this has over, say, a non-performance version. However, I guess this is the USP of the car. It can be that, or it can be a fire-breathing monster when you pull off the motorway and want to play. I have heard people complain of the downshift noise in being artificial, but I never tired of putting it in dynamic, paddling down a few gears and listening to the crazy pops and bangs. Reminded me of my old TVR days. To do so sat in a 2 tonne estate car seemed very novel!

Yours looks splendid I must say.

[matpilch]

One thing I never understand with these cars is their practicality over supercars in terms of transporting whole family at once.
Surely, putting your kids in the back and unleashing even part of the RS6s potential would end up in you having to scrape their breakfast from the carpets. I get it, when you're on your own or with pub buddies, but I cant imagine other members of the family enjoying the experience.

[Nors]

hondansx said:

Darth Vader just ran like fook after seeing that!

Awesome!

[IMI A]

Looks very nice. I was on the motorway at a steady 70mph a few years ago and had one of these join the motorway at 60mph and accelerate to 130mph. I was astonished by its pace. Never seen anything like it. May have perhaps been tuned. I know Litchfield and APR do some amazing power packages to get them up to 750bhp! Apparently engine is easily good enough in terms of design and quality to run 850bhp + on stock internals according to Ian Litchfield

[Welshbeef]

hondansx said:

I'm fortunate enough to have one of these.

I have been a bit of an anti-Audi person as i am something of a 'purist' when it comes to handling, but the capability of this car given it's weight is astonishing at times.

People are right, the diesel does most of the job for you but i have no intention of being a rational car buyer. In fact, i started off thinking of getting a 3.0TDI and the man maths took me to the RS6 Performance including the ridiculously priced carbon ceramics!

The steering and sport differential really disguise it's weight, but you are certainly reminded of the size when parking. Within a a couple of weeks of owning it i had done a trip to Ikea, been to the dump and used it for my wedding. It really does tick every box and, yep, i have picked my moments and used its performance reguarly. As the review suggests, it's also just nice to know you are sitting on a missle; no one messes with you, that's for sure. Especially since i have pimped mine out...

Is that standard ride height?

[stu harris]

matpilch said:

One thing I never understand with these cars is their practicality over supercars in terms of transporting whole family at once.
Surely, putting your kids in the back and unleashing even part of the RS6s potential would end up in you having to scrape their breakfast from the carpets. I get it, when you're on your own or with pub buddies, but I cant imagine other members of the family enjoying the experience.

Ours is our family transport and wifes DD. If we use it for the school run or to any of the childrens events all my daughters friends go straight for the RS6 over any of the other parents cars to be driven in. So do some of the other dads.... You don't have to drive that aggressively when you've the family/friends/kids in the car to deliver a better sense of occasion than a vanilla MPV/SUV. Its enough to burble out in Sport mode and growl up the road.

[405dogvan]

Hackney said:

405dogvan said:

I used-to love the idea of the stealthy uber-estates but we've fully entered the twilight zone with that power (almost entirely unusable for 95% of it's life) and THAT price.

The C5 RS6 or B7 RS4 were near-perfect - everything which followed has been "bigger car bigger numbers sillier options" - I get that people buy them and so they make them but you have to wonder where it ends...

The current RS6 is cartoon-enormous too - one parked behind the dogvan a few weeks ago and it looked like a van! It doesn't even fit normal parking spaces (E Class also now has this issue)

Yet neither is really that much of a load lugger - estates which aren't that big and have more power than you'll ever need and a pricetag which belongs on a 2-seater supercar and...

Yeah, bloody great aren't they!

The thing is, with the older cars - you knew they'd drop-in-price and make sensible used purchases but it's harder to see that happening as the price goes ever skywards - by the time this thing is comparable with a newish hot-hatch it will be 7-years-old and a financial bomb waiting to go-off...

The C5 RS6 was, at one point, the performance car bargain of all bargains (and they really fly - one of the quickest things I've driven) - the C6 never achieved that, partly due to what seemed like far less of them around (maybe price related - maybe because they were a bit st?)

[Welshbeef]

405dogvan said:

The thing is, with the older cars - you knew they'd drop-in-price and make sensible used purchases but it's harder to see that happening as the price goes ever skywards - by the time this thing is comparable with a newish hot-hatch it will be 7-years-old and a financial bomb waiting to go-off...

The C5 RS6 was, at one point, the performance car bargain of all bargains (and they really fly - one of the quickest things I've driven) - the C6 never achieved that, partly due to what seemed like far less of them around (maybe price related - maybe because they were a bit st?)

The V10 Bi turbo is simply epic but due to extra weight and a better faster shifting gearbox it isn't that much faster than he C5. Cosworth made a remarkable engine in the C5 shame about the weak gearbox.

[Icehanger]

matpilch said:

One thing I never understand with these cars is their practicality over supercars in terms of transporting whole family at once.
Surely, putting your kids in the back and unleashing even part of the RS6s potential would end up in you having to scrape their breakfast from the carpets. I get it, when you're on your own or with pub buddies, but I cant imagine other members of the family enjoying the experience.

depends on the family...my 3 YO would whoop in delight "go daddy go"

I agree on the comment on the BiT, I have one and although its a quick car and it is 95% of the RS, Even in dynamic mode with a synthesized V8 noise the engine isn't the most characterful even with large torque thump, I need downshift pops!!
I've driven both the RS6 and its brother the RS7 and they are just epic cars.
During a recent euro holiday I got chatting to a guy with an RS6 at an aire, his touring MPG was only 10mpg less than mine, that certainly helped the man maths with the misses
I Still want an uber fast estate, this is on the list but still dont know which way to head

[Shnozz]

Icehanger said:

During a recent euro holiday I got chatting to a guy with an RS6 at an aire, his touring MPG was only 10mpg less than mine, that certainly helped the man maths with the misses

I got about 24mpg on a steady eddie 260 mile m'way and A road trip from Yorkshire > South coast. Generally about 14 - 16 average and 8 or so in town or when playing hard.

[Icehanger]

Shnozz said:

I got about 24mpg on a steady eddie 260 mile m'way and A road trip from Yorkshire > South coast. Generally about 14 - 16 average and 8 or so in town or when playing hard.

yup that chap was running about 29 with the similar speeds I was doing with cylinder de activation being used.

I'm leaving myself wide open by mentioning MPG on a car like this but man maths aside, in reality the running costs are more, but not that bad really (getting costs from the local dealer has them about 1/4 more than my current car) MPG hits you every day though!

[Dale487]

The £100k+ price tag make me think - I could get a brand new A6 Advant (£45k for a 2.0TDi Quattro Black Edition) & a brand new Cayman or Cayman S (or more likely a second hand 981 Cayman GTS) for the rest. I knoe the RS6 is more about brute force but this would suit me better.

[Lord_Howit_Hertz]

hondansx said:

Yep, that will do for me!! That looks brilliant, although I would probably wish mine was more in 'Blend in' Spec, I cant argue with that, looks very very menacing.

[hondansx]

Dale487 said:

The £100k+ price tag make me think - I could get a brand new A6 Advant (£45k for a 2.0TDi Quattro Black Edition) & a brand new Cayman or Cayman S (or more likely a second hand 981 Cayman GTS) for the rest. I knoe the RS6 is more about brute force but this would suit me better.

A valid argument, but i really struggled with having a daily hack and then a car for 'nice days'. It just meant i spent 5 days craving the weekend car, working my arse off just to get in the same crappy car every other 9-5er has.

Again i am fortunate that the RS6 isn't my only car, and i think this is the case for many RS6 owners.

[hondansx]

Welshbeef said:

hondansx said:

I'm fortunate enough to have one of these.

I have been a bit of an anti-Audi person as i am something of a 'purist' when it comes to handling, but the capability of this car given it's weight is astonishing at times.

People are right, the diesel does most of the job for you but i have no intention of being a rational car buyer. In fact, i started off thinking of getting a 3.0TDI and the man maths took me to the RS6 Performance including the ridiculously priced carbon ceramics!

The steering and sport differential really disguise it's weight, but you are certainly reminded of the size when parking. Within a a couple of weeks of owning it i had done a trip to Ikea, been to the dump and used it for my wedding. It really does tick every box and, yep, i have picked my moments and used its performance reguarly. As the review suggests, it's also just nice to know you are sitting on a missle; no one messes with you, that's for sure. Especially since i have pimped mine out...

Is that standard ride height?

Thanks everyone for the nice comments.

Well spotted - it's on H&R coilovers, so i have removed the DRC suspension.

With an exhaust and map they get to 730bhp. No one really does any more than this, but the Russians have gone a bit mad with them; they're getting well over 900.

[budgie smuggler]

Good article + photos. Enjoyed that, ta.

BTW Is that Sim Mainey of Singletrack fame?

[kayzee]

I've always been about my little go-kart hot hatches... but seriously liking some powerful estates recently, and this is just stunning. If only I hadn't just got myself a mortgage this would have made a brilliant family motor

[Dale487]

hondansx said:

A valid argument, but i really struggled with having a daily hack and then a car for 'nice days'. It just meant i spent 5 days craving the weekend car, working my arse off just to get in the same crappy car every other 9-5er has.

Again i am fortunate that the RS6 isn't my only car, and i think this is the case for many RS6 owners.

Very true about if you can afford a £100k - your likely to have more than one car at home.

I think that for the 9-5 grind the A6 diesel would probably be on a par but with better MPG and I was trying to find a car that offered handling balance, so you could look forward to the weekend blast.

There is no wrong answer here & £100k (or the repayments that service it) give you a lot of choices.

[big_rob_sydney]

Doesnt really do much for me. I guess the million bhp is tempered by the billion kg it has to cart around. I personally prefer cars with sporting intent to be light weight.

Also, its a bit funny to hear that people who buy these usually have another car. In that case, why? I mean, why would you not just buy more focused versions of each vehicle, instead of trying to get something that was a (good) jack of all trades?

To the several-hundred bhp brigade, surely a similarly endowed GTR, matched with a Ford Transit would get you a car faster in a straight line, better braking, better handling and cornering, and a van that carried more. With change?