Audi A6 Allroad 3.0 TDI

[Escy]

I decided to get shot of my troublesome Touareg V10, I didn't have the time or desire to sort it out. A car of that size had proved to be very useful as i'm often lugging around big things so I wanted to replace it with an estate. I was looking at the options around the 4.5k mark, the sensible thing to do would have been get a Renault Laguna, Citroen C6, Mazda 6, etc as they tend to be reliable, cheap to run and you can get one that's reasonably low mileage for the money.

I'm a glutton for punishment so started looking at options I considered more interesting (which I know will ultimately be trouble). I ended up wanting either an Audi A6 Avant Le Mans edition or Audi A6 Allroad, both in 3.0 TDI flavour or a BMW 535D. Cars that were around 4.5k all seemed to be 150k miles and upwards and all seemed to have huge long lists of maintenance done (confirming they are trouble). I've never thought the E60 5 Series was a looker, it's nicer in Touring form but it hasn't aged well and i'd rather a 4wd car. I wanted the Audi, it was only the engine in the 535d that had drawn me in really.

I find Audi's hard to differentiate, i'm obviously into cars, I like to think I notice subtle differences but the styling is so samey across the various models and generations that it all merges as far as i'm concerned. If there were no number plates or badges on any Audi i'd seriously struggle to know what's what, especially at a glance. I guess that's the case to the average person in the street also. The good thing about this is, an older Audi that's in good nick doesn't look dated to my mind. (I might be talking total bks here?!)

I wasn't bothered between an Allroad or Le Mans really, the Allroad has the better ride as it's on air suspension, but the black plastic bumpers aren't my thing. A normal Avant looks better, the spec is generally better on a Le Mans and the alloys are really nice on them. From a couple of weeks looking around at the market, they are both similar money, looking at around 3.5k for something getting on for 200k miles. Prices go up as the mileage comes down or they get younger.

An Allroad came up on ebay on a no reserve auction and it wasn't far away so I was half interested. The listing was shocking, poor pictures, poor write up. The advert came across that it was a little unloved and I had a general feeling it would be a dog. The mileage was 145k so high but not huge, it had body colour bumpers which isn't usual on the Allroad but a big plus for me. It had the light upgrade option (Xenons on the front, LED's at the rear) which is something I wanted to try and find. It was missing a few things like Bose and electric seats (handy as the wife drivers with her nose on the windscreen).

When I messaged the seller about service history, I was told me there was none and it needed a service. Predictably it was going cheaply so I put a bid of £2550 in, I was outbid right at the end. As it was early into me looking for one, I wasn't too bothered. A week later a second chance offer came my way so I went to have a look. The listing said near Bristol, the postcode he gave me was nowhere near Bristol, Cardiff is closer to Bristol than this guy's house was. I went in the evening so it was pitch black when I arrived, not ideal. It was definitely not ideal that the car was totally bogging with dirt all over it. It looked like it'd earnt it's Allroad name. He lived in the middle of nowhere and it was half 9 at night and I had a 2 hour trip back, otherwise i'd have told him to go and put it through a car wash. I really wasn't happy about that and did make him aware.

After a quick inspection by torch light, there was some good and some bad.

Good

• Michelin Pilot Sport tyres all around with good tread (later on I realised they are the wrong profile 40 which is normal Avant size rather than 45 the Allroad runs)
• New discs and pads all around
• There was an invoice for new timing chain and head gasket in 2016 (20k ago) that came to £2750, also another invoice for a service in 2017 so there was some history
• Bodywork seems decent from what I can see
• The leather was in better shape than I expected, thought the poor pictures might be designed to hide wear but they were just poor.
• Factory folding tow bar
• Two keys

Bad

• Wet boot carpet and you can hear water in the boot lid
• Inner section of rear lights (factory LED ones) cracked (possible cause for the water ingress) - this was mentioned on the auction
• The air suspension was very slow to raise up but the car holds pressure fine once it's up
• Fault code for engine mounts which are electro hydraulic.
• Fault codes for both heated mirrors (although the drivers side works)
• Fault code for voltage regulator
• Fault code for radio aerial (seems to work fine).
• Cam cover oil leaks

The test drive went well, I was really impressed, no issues there. It pulls strongly, not smokey on boost. These big Audi's drive really nicely. I was happy to take it at £2550. This is what it looks like, including the dirt I got free with the car. I'm not sure what the colour is, seller said it was black, the log book says grey. It's a dark metallic grey but I think I can see a hint of mauve in it. It's off to the car wash tomorrow which is when i'll find out what i've bought. To be fair, it won't matter it the bodywork is shot to bits, once my wife starts to use it, she'll probably wreck it anyway!

[bolidemichael]

Yup, those tyres look like rubber bands!

Perhaps get some cross climates fitted? On offer at costco at the mo...

[Escy]

I think I've already taken care of the rubber band issue and it's a lot less sensible than fitting some new cross climate tyres! Pictures to follow this weekend hopefully.

[wjb]

I like the look of that, lots of car for £2k.

Perfect for winter too.

[B'stard Child]

wjb said:

I like the look of that, lots of car for £2k.

Snap - I thought blimey that's a lot of metal for £2K - in for the journey however short

[stevemcs]

Escy said:

I think I've already taken care of the rubber band issue and it's a lot less sensible than fitting some new cross climate tyres! Pictures to follow this weekend hopefully.

Hopefully a set of General Grabber AT3's....... You can replace the gaskets around the rear lights, it worked on the one we had in for service.

[S100HP]

Looking forward to your thread again. The Toureg one was good.

Just a minor detail, your original post mentions a C6 which isn't an estate. I think you meant C5.

[Escy]

B'stard Child said:

Snap - I thought blimey that's a lot of metal for £2K - in for the journey however short

A few years I hope but I don't generally keep cars long so. That could be because I buy the bottom of the market then and they are inevitably trouble?!

stevemcs said:

Hopefully a set of General Grabber AT3's....... You can replace the gaskets around the rear lights, it worked on the one we had in for service.

I'm going to replace the rear lights so they'll come with new gaskets. Hopefully that solves it.

S100HP said:

Looking forward to your thread again. The Toureg one was good.

Just a minor detail, your original post mentions a C6 which isn't an estate. I think you meant C5.

C6 is this generation of Audi, the C5 is the older one that was available with the 2.7t, which I have a habit of re-homing . This Allroad actually goes by the designation 4FH.

[S100HP]

Thanks! I thought you meant a Citroen

[Escy]

You're right, I did mean a Citroen C5 rather than a C6. Sorry.

[Shadow R1]

A lot of car for the money.
Look forward to the updates on it.

[col1983]

Im not an Audi fan but that shape of A6 has aged really well - probably helps that Audi don’t massively change their style but if you didn’t look at the plate, you could easily think it’s a much newer car. For the money, looks like a bargain! Enjoy - looking forward to this one

[BigRusko]

Escy said:

• Wet boot carpet and you can hear water in the boot lid
• Inner section of rear lights (factory LED ones) cracked (possible cause for the water ingress)

Both inner and outer rear lights have issues with gaskets going flat and the lenses cracking.
It's well documented here;
http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/...

Escy said:

I'm not sure what the colour is, seller said it was black, the log book says grey. It's a dark metallic grey but I think I can see a hint of mauve in it.

Possibly the same colour as mine, Daytona Grey Pearl?

Might be worth checking out the battery condition, I had a voltage regulator code which was cured by a new battery. Not cheap mind...

[Spinakerr]

For this money I'm interested to see how this develops, and looks forward to some offroading escapades.

[Michaelbailey]

Nice to see someone else doesnt shy away from a car despite the horrendous wrap they get (although I think it was the c5 that is one that really gets some stick)

Always worth a read on what escy is up to

Edited to correct typo

[Nicks90]

I owned a c5 allroad with the 2.7 biturbo, and it was a blindingly good car. Just had some very expensive and annoying habits - like eating compressors and springing a multitude of leaks in the spaghetti of pipe work under the bonnet.
Oh and egt sensors, clutches and other random undecipherable sensors that seemingly did nothing but would cause the engine to go in to limp mode.

But when it worked, it was a fine wagon.

[Escy]

BigRusko said:

Possibly the same colour as mine, Daytona Grey Pearl?

Might be worth checking out the battery condition, I had a voltage regulator code which was cured by a new battery. Not cheap mind...

Thanks for the link. I've cleared the voltage regulator code and it's not come back again.

[Escy]

I've not had much time this weekend but did take it down to the local hand car wash, it's come up alright (the bits they didn't miss have anyway). The photos aren't the best as it was still wet and the light was a bit harsh.








The original 18" wheels looked too small in my opinion, plus the tyres being the wrong profile meant I wanted to replace the lot. I came across a set of 20" Audi S8 alloys locally on ebay. The advert was really bad, a photo of the side of the S8 from a bad angle in the wet. No mention of the tyre so I sent a message and had a reply back saying there were all legal, no mention of brand or tread depth. I paid £400 for them expecting to need to buy tyres. I was chuffed when I went to collect and they had Dunlop Sport Maxx GT tyres all with over 6.5mm of tread. They are £210 each new. Condition wise there are a few marks on the wheels but nothing too bad, i'm pretty bad for kerbing wheels anyway so i'm sure i'll add some fresh ones. There was a missing centre cap but he found it so I went back to collect it which is why it's not in the photo.



By the time I got the wheels on it was dark. As it's an Allroad you can lower the air suspension on vagcom which was my cunning plan all along. I went down to my local retail car park as it's flat and had decent lights so I could mess about on the laptop. It took me a while but this is how it looks now. I'm pleased, I think the wheels suit it and don't look too big on it either. Looking forward to seeing it tomorrow in the daylight.



A few of you are probably thinking i've ruined it as that's not what the Allroad is about. I got an early test to find out if I had. When I turned around to leave the car park some nob on security had locked the gates without telling me (I wasn't aware they got locked). There was a small gap where there was a double kerb, there was a corner of the kerb(which can't be seen) which was quite tall and jutting out, I definately wouldn't have got a normal car over it. With the Allroad suspension set to lift setting which is the highest I slowly went over, it cleared fine, so it's good to know my changes haven't rendered it useless.

Edited by Escy on Sunday 10th November 22:15

[maestronakagata]

Plenty of car for the money and definitely one of Audi's best built cars, but on that subject I'm biased since I have one, albeit with a "slightly" different engine...

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

A few considerations:

- Audi's pearl effect paints simply s**k: mine is midnight blue pearl and it's a PITA to keep it clean and shiny.

- the car is a bit temperamental on electrics and electronics: having a new battery and coding it with VCDS is a must and will solve more problems than you can imagine. Also, activating the service menu in MMI will give you the possibility to turn on the battery level indicator in the "CAR" menu submask.

- regarding suspensions, while mine gets out of the factory with slightly firmer and lower settings, I left it with the original 18" wheels for a better balance between comfort and (ehm...) handling. I suspect that switching to 20" would put too much stress on the suspension airbags, but that's just my 2c...

[Escy]

I've read your thread when looking into buying one. Yours is lovely. The 4.2 is rare, not many around in the UK. I'll do that service menu hack, thanks for letting me know.