2008 RS6 avant
Discussion
Evening all, until recently I had a 1987 UR quattro as a weekend/restoration car but after six years of a love hate relationship (mainly hate!) we parted ways. It would have been sooner but I thought I'd regret the sale more than I do!
After the sale I was down to just my e61 530d which is a perfectly good car but I found myself constantly trawling the classifieds for an all in one car, that could do family duties, rocket ship duties, sounded good and made my commute feel that little more special. The beemer had the first one nailed, was fairly quick, sounded okay for a diseasle but didn't really tick the last box.
I looked at C63's, M3's, VXR8's, various Jags but couldn't see me wanting to keep any of those for too long as deep down I knew I wanted a fast estate. I had eyed up both the M5 touring and S6 avant but felt the former would throw up problems (as seemingly many do) and I knew I'd regret buying the latter as it wasn't the RS6.
So four weeks ago my daughter heads off to her grandmas for the week and my wife and I decide to take a look at an RS6 in Portsmouth, you know, just out of curiousity. Well 30 minutes later both my wife and I are quite taken by the car and head off for a ponder. I decided (accountant brain took over) that there was nowt wrong with the beemer and I should just suck it up and live with it and sit on the cash.
Well, two days later my wifes uncle dies suddenly at the age of 52 just four months after her step dad dies at the age of 53. We both decided that lifes too short and within a day or so I'd sourced an RS6 privately and agreed a price, sight unseen. The day after that I'm on a train from Southampton to Hertfordshire. Took a quick look around the car, briefly scanned through the inch thick A4 folder of main dealer invoices and chat with the owners parents at length. The chat and my gut told me the car was a goodun (this is car number 39 and I'm only 35!) and the deal was done, and I started my 150 mile drive home.
Until that point I'd never driven a car with 700 horses under the bonnet as the one I drove a few days before had *only* 572bhp!! All I can say is the thing is bonkers, a car that is the size of the moon and weighs as much shouldn't be that quick! Even with a few spirited blasts the trip indicated 26.3mpg on its journey home which was a bonus as I wasn't expecting anything like that.
I've now owned the car for just over three weeks and in that time I've done over 800 miles and averaged 19.5mpg, mainly due to the car hating bumbling around town where I rarely see above 14mpg!
The only things I've done to the car is clean the exhaust tips which looked like they've never been cleaned and changed the AMI cable to accept usb sticks for my music. Not much else planned to the car save a boot liner for the dog and tip runs and some tinting which really helps my daughter on longer journeys.
I can see myself keeping the car for a while as although I get bored of cars usually within 6 months or so I just can't think where the hell I'd go next!
Just a couple of pics of the car for now. Any questions or comments please let me know.
Thanks
Dave
After the sale I was down to just my e61 530d which is a perfectly good car but I found myself constantly trawling the classifieds for an all in one car, that could do family duties, rocket ship duties, sounded good and made my commute feel that little more special. The beemer had the first one nailed, was fairly quick, sounded okay for a diseasle but didn't really tick the last box.
I looked at C63's, M3's, VXR8's, various Jags but couldn't see me wanting to keep any of those for too long as deep down I knew I wanted a fast estate. I had eyed up both the M5 touring and S6 avant but felt the former would throw up problems (as seemingly many do) and I knew I'd regret buying the latter as it wasn't the RS6.
So four weeks ago my daughter heads off to her grandmas for the week and my wife and I decide to take a look at an RS6 in Portsmouth, you know, just out of curiousity. Well 30 minutes later both my wife and I are quite taken by the car and head off for a ponder. I decided (accountant brain took over) that there was nowt wrong with the beemer and I should just suck it up and live with it and sit on the cash.
Well, two days later my wifes uncle dies suddenly at the age of 52 just four months after her step dad dies at the age of 53. We both decided that lifes too short and within a day or so I'd sourced an RS6 privately and agreed a price, sight unseen. The day after that I'm on a train from Southampton to Hertfordshire. Took a quick look around the car, briefly scanned through the inch thick A4 folder of main dealer invoices and chat with the owners parents at length. The chat and my gut told me the car was a goodun (this is car number 39 and I'm only 35!) and the deal was done, and I started my 150 mile drive home.
Until that point I'd never driven a car with 700 horses under the bonnet as the one I drove a few days before had *only* 572bhp!! All I can say is the thing is bonkers, a car that is the size of the moon and weighs as much shouldn't be that quick! Even with a few spirited blasts the trip indicated 26.3mpg on its journey home which was a bonus as I wasn't expecting anything like that.
I've now owned the car for just over three weeks and in that time I've done over 800 miles and averaged 19.5mpg, mainly due to the car hating bumbling around town where I rarely see above 14mpg!
The only things I've done to the car is clean the exhaust tips which looked like they've never been cleaned and changed the AMI cable to accept usb sticks for my music. Not much else planned to the car save a boot liner for the dog and tip runs and some tinting which really helps my daughter on longer journeys.
I can see myself keeping the car for a while as although I get bored of cars usually within 6 months or so I just can't think where the hell I'd go next!
Just a couple of pics of the car for now. Any questions or comments please let me know.
Thanks
Dave
Edited by QuattroDave on Sunday 30th August 23:41
E63M6 said:
What a machine, the sound must be addictive. Enjoy 
You're not wrong, the sound is epic. The best sound is changing gear on full load. Found a clip on youtube that shows the gearchange moment (56 seconds for the 'big' sound):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuB_rFs2Oig&li...
IanH755 said:
Welcome to the C6 club matey! Whats the spec like (ACC, seats etc) as the CF engine parts aren't cheap so I'd hope who ever spec'd it did a good job?
Thanks all.As for spec, this one is a relatively poverty spec. Has cruise but not sure if 'active'. Has the adjustable sports seats, heated front and rear but not cooled. Has Audi music interface too but lacks the sort of toys I put on the tdie I specced and bought new in 2009 which included things like digital freeview tv, 30gb hard drive etc etc. One thing I'd like to do is update the 2g mmi to 3g and add freeview but looking at the retrofits it's not looking cheap! To be fair though the RS6 came fairly well specced so has DAB, bose sound system, voice activated nav, colour DIS and so on. One thing it hasn't got thankfully is carbon ceramic brakes as I've been looking at standard brakes for these and Audi quoted £1,807 for pads and discs all round PLUS fitting (though I did get that all down to £850 fitted using OEM parts just not using Audi!)
justanother5tar said:
Awesome car!
The one in the video sounds epic. Yours sound similar?
I can happily say it sounds exactly like that! I must confess to trying to time my gear changes just right so that when I'm approaching a car with its roof down the gunshot goes off just as I'm passing!The one in the video sounds epic. Yours sound similar?
ShyTallKnight said:
Interesting thread Dave thanks for posting. I'm pretty much in the same position debating whether to move from the daily and weekend car to a one size fits all and the RS6 was on my radar. I will follow your experiences with interest ??
Well from the research I did there are seemingly no known issues with the C6 RS6. The gearbox is able to cope with 1,000NM torque, the engine is tuneable to c.20-30% without changing much in the engine bay (aside from air filters). Even the DRC (dynamic ride control) is beefed up from the C5 version and has no major issues) All in all the polar opposite to the consensus of the C5 rs6 and its reliability!To help people with understanding the costs of owning one of these I've started to pull together some routine costs:
Insurance - I've put this first as it's quite frankly ludicrous (in a good way) - this year I'm payinig £293 fully comp, business use, 7,000 miles with protected no claims!
Tyres - My car has the gargantuan 275/35/R20's all round. Costco have quoted £221 all in per tyre for Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Dropping down to Bridgestones and the like the tyres drop to £175 each.
Brakes - Audi wanted £375 per front disc, £260 for front pads and similar figures for the rear. Euro car parts will source the same front discs sans Audi stamp for £228 per front disc, £130 for front pads and £40 rear pads. Sadly they can't source rear discs from anywhere but Audi but I've found an aftermarket rear disc manufacturer (ADL blueprint) that'll do the rear discs for less than £60 each (Audi ask £260!). ADL seem to get good reviews on other performance cars they supply.
Service - Full 20k service at my local Audi specialist is £330 + £100 if new spark plugs are needed. MRC (tuning company) charge £780 for the same level service but include sparks in that price.
Fuel economy - Other owners seem to average at between 15-17mpg but I can only imagine they're either a) stuck in traffic all the time or b) blipping through the gears every opportunity they get! I'm down to 19.5mpg since I've owned the car but fully expect it to sit at around 21mpg as an average once I do some more longer journeys. Round town is anywhere from 11-16mpg and on a run it'll do anywhere from 21-26mpg.
On a slight aside, the first few two tankfuls of fuel I put in super premium. However when looking at the filler cap it states 91/95 ron so whilst the price difference between the two is unusually large (118p/litre for super vs 105p/litre for regular) I'm sticking in the regular stuff and seeing no performance drop or rough running.
Edited by QuattroDave on Monday 31st August 18:17
What an odd spec, those CF engine parts are over £1500 just to look pretty but the rest of the spec is almost stock which is very strange, unless a previous owner managed to pick up a 2nd hand set on the cheap?
Which Audi garage did you get those service prices from, they're ludicrously low. Every garage I asked in the SE wanted £1300+ for a 20K with plugs (£500+ for the plugs on their own) which is why I'm going with MRC.
Petrol - If it's mapped it "must" be run on Super, the 91-95 figures are for a stock car. You may not notice the 30hp+ drop but the engine will not run how it's been mapped and may cause issues with Knock and hot running.
Which Audi garage did you get those service prices from, they're ludicrously low. Every garage I asked in the SE wanted £1300+ for a 20K with plugs (£500+ for the plugs on their own) which is why I'm going with MRC.
Petrol - If it's mapped it "must" be run on Super, the 91-95 figures are for a stock car. You may not notice the 30hp+ drop but the engine will not run how it's been mapped and may cause issues with Knock and hot running.
Edited by IanH755 on Monday 31st August 18:42
IanH755 said:
What an odd spec, those CF engine parts are over £1500 just to look pretty but the rest of the spec is almost stock which is very strange, unless a previous owner managed to pick up a 2nd hand set on the cheap?
Which Audi garage did you get those service prices from, they're ludicrously low. Every garage I asked in the SE wanted £1300+ for a 20K with plugs (£500+ for the plugs on their own) which is why I'm going with MRC.
Petrol - If it's mapped it "must" be run on Super, the 91-95 figures are for a stock car. You may not notice the 30hp+ drop but the engine will not run how it's been mapped and may cause issues with Knock and hot running.
I did wonder about issues on a mapped engine. The place that quoted me was independent vw in hedge end & chandlers ford. I will see what audi quote as they mentioned 20% off parts with a service. Still going to be very expensive with them but it'd be good to know how much.Which Audi garage did you get those service prices from, they're ludicrously low. Every garage I asked in the SE wanted £1300+ for a 20K with plugs (£500+ for the plugs on their own) which is why I'm going with MRC.
Petrol - If it's mapped it "must" be run on Super, the 91-95 figures are for a stock car. You may not notice the 30hp+ drop but the engine will not run how it's been mapped and may cause issues with Knock and hot running.
Edited by IanH755 on Monday 31st August 18:42
IanH755 said:
Petrol - If it's mapped it "must" be run on Super, the 91-95 figures are for a stock car. You may not notice the 30hp+ drop but the engine will not run how it's been mapped and may cause issues with Knock and hot running.
Agreed, running a high power tuned car like that on anything other than super out of choice, isn't sensible.Edited by IanH755 on Monday 31st August 18:42
TheAllSeeingPie said:
Bang in a can of octane booster till this tank is finished and then super all the way. Tesco stuff is fine if you're saving pennies but really Shell V-Power is where it's at of you want the full 700 ponies 
S'ok, tanks almost gone!In other news, I surprised myself today when pulling out of an (annoying to get out of) junction today and managed to spin the wheels up. Didn't even manage to do that in the beemer when I had it :S did lighten the mood on the way home from a proper crap day in the office mind!
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