A bargain V6 Audi

[DanielSan]

I wasn't going to bother doing one of these for this car but there were a couple of requests for it on my previous build thread, so this a short and likely very uninteresting introduction and update on my current cheap car.

As a few of you may have seen, and most probably haven't, my BRZ caught a serious case of rod knock just before Christmas. Fortunately I managed a quick sale on the car as it was rather than throwing more money at it to buy an unknown engine and take that gamble.

This meant that I needed to find a stop gap car for a while, and it just so happened a friend had this for sale at very much the right money. It's a 2009 Audi A5 in 3.2 V6 flavour with a manual gearbox, Audi multimedia stereo complete with DVD player and some rare 20 inch option wheels. The price for all of this German magnificence? Under £3000

As I bought it


The car was looking a bit shabby but nothing a good clean couldn't fix. When I bought the car it needed a new clutch, the old one was slipping more than a slippery thing on ice, a pair of tyres and an MOT to see if anything else may need urgent rectification. Fortunately the only fail point was the front tyres.
Clutch done, by said friend, who used the words ball and ache quite a lot to describe how easy that job was to do, tyres on along with a quick service and it was time for a good clean inside and out. All of that came out to a bill not far away from half the purchase price of the car...


Exterior




The before interior pictures have been deleted off my phone so the afters will have to do.




Also while cleaning the interior I noticed that the gearknob was looking tatty and worn. Ebay saved the day with a fresh looking knob and a gaiter that fitted as well as so many chinesium parts do. It's nothing 10 minutes swapping new knob onto old gaiter can't sort.




Ebay came in handy one final time when it came to addressing an old tech based issue I wasn't aware of. The Bluetooth in this car only pairs up to make phone calls, it doesn't stream music. Fortunately a £14 Bluetooth adaptor that plugs into the ipod (whhoooooo???) socket and allows you to stream music that way. Sadly it doesn't bring your phone stuff up on the display but I can't complain for the money

[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/BLV195UR[/url]
The engine bay was possibly the filthiest area, I may have gotten a little carried away




The bay of E also came in handy for the missing badge under the bonnet



To add a final bit more waffle, I've had the car just coming upto 2 months now, there's been 2 small niggles to sort out, it kept throwing up an eml code related to the throttle body over the last few weeks, after much Google searching I found the fix to be a simple case of removing snd cleaning the throttle body. I did that last week and so far the code hasn't reappeard. I pronounce that issue, fixed



Also last week, what I thought to be a dead headlight bulb actually turned out to be a dead ballast so again bay's finest came to the rescue with some next day delivery, with a pair of 6000k bulbs as well as the new ballast.


Not a great pic but you get the idea


Small, easy to fix niggles aside, the car drives really well, it's on 125,000 miles but still feels tight as a drum, the steering is light which does suit the character of the car but definitely isn't what you'd call either fun or feelsome. The V6 donkey has a nice lump or of torque low down but is still pretty revvy for what it is. It's not the best on fuel but given how short my commute is, it's averaging 24mpg which is only 2mpg less than the BRZ did on the same trip. I didn't even realise the performance figures for this car until a couple of weeks after I picked it up, 265bhp ans 5.6 seconds 0-60. It certainly feels like it has those numbers.

As for what the future holds for this car I'm not sure yet, I think it's going to be put up for sale, but I'm in no real rush to sell it unless the right replacement comes along. It's quite a nice change to be relaxed in a car.

Thanks for reading the ramblings of an idiot. I've not proof read this to even see if it makes sense so good luck, and if you got this far, God help you.

[keo]

Looks an ace car for the money! Proper wafter!

[Mr Tidy]

That's a great car for the money.

[S600BSB]

Lovely car mate!

[Resolutionary]

I had this engine in an A4 Avant, it was surprisingly spritely and the sound was really a bit naughty even with no modifications.

Always considered this shape A6 the nicest one, so I think this is a really nice package. The post-bay clean is most satisfying.

[waynedear]

Very nice, an A5 coupe, was with my bm 630i as the car I wanted, it was bloody close.... BM just won.

[Greendubber]

That looks like incredibly good value to me!

[Bill]

These were always handsome with mini-muscle car looks and have aged really well. Put an ageless plate on it and no one would guess it's almost 15-y-o.

[simon_harris]

I had the A4 version of that for about 6 months and hated it, was such a poor engine, rubbish noise, less power and no tuning options that were not super super expensive. I sold it and bought a V8 S5 instead (which tbh was almost as bad)

[Scoobydrew95]

interested in anything V6 Audi! Do you have any drive-train slop/knocks/bangs?

[carinaman]

Interesting. I've been told quattro clutches can be a ball ache. The shape of these has grown on me. Seems a lot of car for the money though I don't have a mate who would do the clutch.

[jamesson]

That's a lovely looking car. The dark colour suits it. I've always thought the A5 was one of the better looking efforts from Audi in recent years and it has aged well to my mind.

[DanielSan]

Scoobydrew95 said:

interested in anything V6 Audi! Do you have any drive-train slop/knocks/bangs?

So far no knocks/bangs. It did feel a bit strange on part throttle especially when pulling away. I think that was to do with the throttle body though, it's been nice and smooth again after that was done and the code was cleared.

[Scoobydrew95]

DanielSan said:

So far no knocks/bangs. It did feel a bit strange on part throttle especially when pulling away. I think that was to do with the throttle body though, it's been nice and smooth again after that was done and the code was cleared.

That's good to hear! The Torsen systems do feel a little weird, specially at low speeds.

[Court_S]

That looks like a lot of car for the cash.

[DanielSan]

Court_S said:

That looks like a lot of car for the cash.

It certainly feels like that now the little bits are sorted. I've never really been one for cars like this but it's a nice change to the usual low/hard/loud stuff I generally go for.

I'm thinking at the moment if I sell it of going down the 5 cylinder Focus ST route for a while. 5 cylinders ticks another box I've not done yet without soending a lot more money on an RS3, they still do the cruiser thing well but will be more fun if I want to go for a bit of a hoon.

[Mr Tidy]

DanielSan said:

It certainly feels like that now the little bits are sorted. I've never really been one for cars like this but it's a nice change to the usual low/hard/loud stuff I generally go for.

I'm thinking at the moment if I sell it of going down the 5 cylinder Focus ST route for a while. 5 cylinders ticks another box I've not done yet without soending a lot more money on an RS3, they still do the cruiser thing well but will be more fun if I want to go for a bit of a hoon.

Or maybe a TTRS?

[DanielSan]

Mr Tidy said:

DanielSan said:

It certainly feels like that now the little bits are sorted. I've never really been one for cars like this but it's a nice change to the usual low/hard/loud stuff I generally go for.

I'm thinking at the moment if I sell it of going down the 5 cylinder Focus ST route for a while. 5 cylinders ticks another box I've not done yet without soending a lot more money on an RS3, they still do the cruiser thing well but will be more fun if I want to go for a bit of a hoon.

Or maybe a TTRS?

A small person puts a stop to that one at the moment. My car isn't the main car we use but it's handy having something all 3 of us can go in if needed.

[Mr Tidy]

DanielSan said:

Mr Tidy said:

DanielSan said:

It certainly feels like that now the little bits are sorted. I've never really been one for cars like this but it's a nice change to the usual low/hard/loud stuff I generally go for.

I'm thinking at the moment if I sell it of going down the 5 cylinder Focus ST route for a while. 5 cylinders ticks another box I've not done yet without soending a lot more money on an RS3, they still do the cruiser thing well but will be more fun if I want to go for a bit of a hoon.

Or maybe a TTRS?

A small person puts a stop to that one at the moment. My car isn't the main car we use but it's handy having something all 3 of us can go in if needed.

Fair enough.

I bought a manual BMW E90 330i with 258bhp in 2019 that has 6 cylinders for just under £3.5K!

[MightyBadger]

That looks great, cracking job sprucing it up. Such a nice design and lines on these.

I bought a similar waft machine for my commute, e39 530i manual, does about the same mpg as yours and drives lovely. Also fancied a 5 cylinder next, v5 golf estate or 940/v70 possibly. v8 box needs ticking in the next few years too.

Edit, I had a few people telling me not to get thee e39 as it would be ruinous when the truth of it is that it’s no more expensive in petrol and insurance than my old r53 mini. Parts are no more expensive than any other car I have owned.

Edited by MightyBadger on Thursday 15th February 10:27