IanH's C5 RS6 - A Car Diary

IanH's C5 RS6 - A Car Diary

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IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Hi all, my name's Ian and for my first post I thought I'd introduce myself and my RS6 with this car diary. I'll update it with everything that happens whilst I own it.



Bought - 20th Dec '13 - It was completely standard (except for being de-badged) and I'm the third owner, with the 1st one taking obvious care of it with a service book full of Audi stamps and receipts for nearly 9 years while the 2nd owner appeared "more relaxed" about the maintenance side of ownership for the year he owned it before part-exchanging. For a ten year old car it's in extremely good condition. The paint work only has 2 very minor scratches, the engine bay is spotless, the interior looks brand new and it's had the brakes & timing belt replaced 10K miles ago. No 2nd hand car is perfect and this hold true here although the problems are minor. The Left Rear mid-bass speaker is blown (works but sound crackly/farty), the paint had bubbled on one of the rear parking sensors intermittently sending the system haywire (see's a object when there not) and the Carbon Fibre ash-tray trim piece is loose. Not bad really!













28th Dec '13 - Visited MRC for the Following - Gearbox service, 20K service inc MAF's/DV's/N75 replacement, Health check, 2x MRC Air Filters and a brake fluid change followed by a Stage 1+ remap (engine and gearbox ECU) giving 500hp and 600ft/lbs (probably 550ft/lbs without the torque converter bump). They found a few issues which will be sorted later next month and cured a cruise control issue after it had been mapped out during a previous owners attempt at re-mapping.

31st Dec '13 - Replaced the RNS-D with an Alpine INE-W925R head unit with more connectivity than you could shake a stick at and including DAB & Sat Nav, meaning the standard aerial has been replaced with a "sharks-fin" style one due to the different DAB/GPS aerials.



4th Jan '14 - Got a 4 wheel Alignment. Not that far off but there's a strange high frequency vibration at 70+mph that's not been cured by this or having the wheels rebalanced.

6th Jan '14 - Took the left rear door trim apart to fix the crackly speaker by replacing it and replaced the interior lights with LED's.

16th Jan '14 - Replaced the loose Carbon Fibre trim piece from the Ashtray.

23rd Jan '14 - Fitted 4x Goodyear Eagle Asymmetric 2's in 255/35-19 size.

28th Jan '14 - Visited MRC again to fix the issues found during the 20K service. This included a Cam Belt change inc water pump and tensioners, replacing a rear brake calliper, fitting Zimmerman front brake discs and Ferodo DS2500 pads, 2x new front upper arms, a rear tie rod, replaced the leaky rocker cover gaskets and finally grinding the knobs off the front suspension arms to avoid damaging the tyres.

8th Mar '14 - Replaced the Gearbox at Unit20 after it started to slip in 2nd at full throttle and shuffled between 3rd-4th at part throttle. While the box was out I also had the EGT's, Lambda's, Water/Oil cooler bobbin and the oil feed pipes replaced too.

15th Mar '14 - Took advantage of the lovely weather to give her a quick wash and take some pics -











17th Mar '14 - After the lovely weather at the weekend I found that my AirCon was a bit weedy so had it regassed at Merityre in Witney. Took an hour and cost £54.

18th Mar '14 - Gave her yet another wash to remove all the sandy that covered her then took a few pics and did a quick 0-60+ test.









0-60mph in 3.9 seconds in a 2 ton estate, I really LOVE this car!



26th Mar '14 - Finished off the Interior Light LED install, fitted whiter 5000K bulbs to the headlights (OEM is 4300K), better LED side Lights (white not blue/white) and somehow fixed a broken HID ballast by wiggling a cable.











31st Mar '14 - Met up with another RS6 owner to give her my old GPS Aerial and have a quick passenger ride in her car to check out her cars suspension as mine is starting to feel a bit shot. Love the KW suspension she has fitted but her juddery rear brakes (new pads) weren't nice!



6th Apr '14 - Had a mini-meet and blast around the Cotswolds with a bunch of B5 RS4 owners and found out that an RS4 in your rear view mirror is a menacing sight! A fantastic day!









13th April '14 - With the weather turning Sunday into a fantastic driving day I popped into Blenheim Palace after another blast around the Cotswolds, the south eastern half this time. I didn't want to pay the £5 entrance fee just to get a picture so took this on the driveway instead.



17th April '14 - The state of my alloys had always concerned me since I picked up the car. A previous owner had got them refurbed and the job was done so poorly so that by the time I owned her the paint was flaking off all 4 wheels in large chunks with the inner faces losing 90% of the paint and there was a distinct vibration that weights couldn't cure.

I took the alloys to Platinum Wheel Refurb in Swindon based on a huge review thread on PistonHeads. A week and £400 later I've got lovely looking alloys and the vibration has gone after straightening the 2 buckled alloys! Here's a pic - Nothing special added or done to them, they've just been returned to "As New" condition in their original colour.

Also really need to get a proper detailing done with colour correction as my paint is quite "orange peely" to my eyes when you see it upclose.



Cheers for reading.......................................Ian

Edited by IanH755 on Sunday 20th April 17:08

lewisf182

2,084 posts

187 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Great write up.
Car looks stunning and in great condition for a 10 year old car.

These cars must be heading towards future classic? The car that started the modern audi craze and gave audi the bump it needed to properly take the fight to bmw.

mak2503

110 posts

134 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Beautiful looking car. Always loved these. Your one looks in great condition and you can't complain with that 0-60 time.

I love the look of that green B5 RS4 as well.

crazy about cars

4,454 posts

168 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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3.89s 0-60mph! Now that's blistering performance. That's really good performance considering it's an auto box. Not bad for a near 2 tonne estate indeed! I bet you surprised many cars with that power smile

Ved

3,825 posts

174 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Big sodding German beef. Spanky smile

Keeping all the receipts or burning right after you've entered your PIN?

dunny83

105 posts

183 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Really enjoyed that, great pic's too. Loverly looking car, glad to see you got hold of it before it went too long without proper maintenance. I got my alloys done by the same company last month, they do a great job. Keep the pics coming thumbup

IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Ved - I keep everything other than petrol receipts! When I sold my old RB26 engined R34 GTT I had 2 box folders full of receipts for absolutely everything and I found that it gave any potential new owners a reassuring feeling that the car had been looked after well when they could go back through 6+ years of receipts.

CB2152

1,555 posts

132 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Lovely car, lovely pictures as well smile

Alfa GTV

236 posts

162 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Great car, at Brize then?

scarebus

858 posts

170 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Lovely pictures and a lovely car, I must say I haven't seen a Nokia N95 for quite a few years now, much rarer than the RS6....

leglessAlex

5,380 posts

140 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Beautiful car and in amazing condition by the looks of it. I'm developing a real soft spot for this generation RS6, it's an itch I have to scratch one day.

ecain63

10,588 posts

174 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
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Fantastic car, had one myself for over 2 years.

Ref your performance figures, I think they are a bit out. Doug at MRC won't normally map a stage 1 above 500lbft as the box wont take it for long at all. Stage 1 is normally 500bhp and at most 550lbft. 600lbft takes a bit more modification too.

3.9s to 60 is a bit optimistic too. Mine waa mapped by MRC to 508bhp with a miltek and was circa 4.5s to 60. Try your runs with a VBox for accurate figures. Borrow mine if you want. My 530bhp C63 only runs 4.2s 60 currently.

Asside from that, great car.

IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Sunday 20th April 2014
quotequote all
ecain63 - Here's my dyno run from MRC, the TQ bumps it up to 820nm (600ft/lbs) at 3000rpm but it's stable at 750nm (550ft/lbs) throughout 3500 to 5000rpm before tailing off to 600nm (440ft/lbs) at redline. I did mention those figures the above post (600 but probably 550)



I worked for a few rally teams in Scotland (Rhino Rally, Moray Phoenix and Fox Rally) doing in-car cameras and GPS timing etc and my 0-60 time was measured using a 10hz GPS receiver (Q-Starz BT-Q818XT) which has the same accuracy as the racelogic v-box unit. However, that particular 0-60 used left foot braking to hold the revs upto 2000rpm which isn't very healthy for a TQ so I only did it once. Normally it's around 4.1-4.2 seconds -


BlimeyCharlie

901 posts

141 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Hi interesting choice of car but I'm cheekily curious how much it has cost in running costs since purchased by you?
Glad you have detailed everything you've done but cost would help. I did consider one of these a while ago but I feared big bills.


IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
BlimeyCharlie - You'd be right too biggrin Before I post these up please bear in mind that I'm a massive fan of Over Maintenance and I'd like to keep the car for at least 3-5 years and will therefore have gone well overboard with my maintenance program i.e replaced bits that probably didn't need doing right away but would probably have needed doing sooner rather than later and, seen as the engine/gearbox had to be removed, what the hell lets change them!

Since Dec when I bought it my current maintenance bill stands at nearly £15,000 which sounds crazy, trust me I know! I've had virtually everything replaced that can be replaced like MAF's, DV's, N75, Lambdas, EGR's, Gearbox, oil pipes, Cambelt, Front Brake Discs/Pads, 4 tyres, 4 refurbed alloys, Front and rear suspension arms, rear brake caliper, oils, filters, gaskets, new Alpine Head Unit and I've also had £600+ of mapping for the ECU/TCU but Labour has been the biggest figure, over £8000 just in labour so far. If I really had to I could have not bothered with the 2nd service and gearbox and saved £10K this year but it would have needed doing soon and may have caused further issues if I'd left it any longer.

My last thing is the suspension as the right rear DRC is starting to fail so there's another £2000 on some Bilsteins etc.

HOWEVER, and it is a big HOWEVER, after this the car will be perfect and should give me a few years of stress free driving, until the manifolds crack and blow the turbos (another £4000) or the alternator goes (£1000) etc, oh the joys!

There's are a few lucky people that have bought theirs and only spent around £1000 over 3 years of ownership but I'd say the average is upto £3000 a year as various bits need replacing (cambelt £1k, Brakes £1k (front or rear), service £500-£1k etc etc).

Here's an actual breakdown of my costs in rough chronological order

Replacement CF Trim pieces - £70
Headunit/Aerial & fitting - £1400
Service/mapping - £2200
4 Tyres and Alignment - £420
Cambelt, Front brakes, fix bits bits found during service - £4000
Gearbox, EGR's etc - £5900
Aircon Recharge - £55
Alloys Refurb - £430

Owing one of these is not for the faint walleted, it's a shame the price is now low enough that people can afford to buy one on a budget but can't afford to maintain it and so they become passed on quickly lowering the residuals.


Edited by IanH755 on Monday 21st April 20:50


Edited by IanH755 on Monday 21st April 20:51

piers1

826 posts

193 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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I love the idea of owning one, but could'nt stomach the potential running costs!

Chatted to a guy at a petrol station who pulled in with one, I was remarking how wonderful it looked and sounded, and he said that it was a joy to own, but such a shame he had to spend so much time in petrol stations, that I would'nt want the running costs and to stick with the Elise!!

IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
Piers1 - I only live a few miles from work so I cycle and just use the RS6 as a weekend car mainly so day to day costs aren't bad (£80-160 a month in petrol) once the big costs are done with.

piers1

826 posts

193 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
Yours is a lovely example, and sounds like you have titivated it perfectly! I guess if it is not a daily drive, that helps the running costs, enjoy it..one day for me...one day... wink

Ved

3,825 posts

174 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
£55 for AC re-gas?!?

IanH755

Original Poster:

1,848 posts

119 months

Monday 21st April 2014
quotequote all
Ved - It was a full service rather than my hastily typed re-gas, took about an hour on the machine, redid the oils as well as an anti-bac and then a re-gas.