Audi C6 RS6 V10 748bhp
Discussion
Hi Everyone,
I always meant to do a 'Readers car' thread on my C5 RS6 but never got around to it despite owning it from 2010 until about 6 months ago.
I was completely immersed in rally type cars through my twenties and thirties, having a 16 valve Lancia Integrale, then a Subaru WR Prodrive (see my other reader cars thread about that car that i still own: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=16... ), then i moved on into a Subaru widetrack Type UK blob eye. At this point in my life i had two small children and then a third child joined our family. We have always driven to the alps each winter to go skiing and with the small children the Scoobies were perfect but as they grew and number 3 arrived i knew my time in japanese rally cars was running out. My last trip up the mountains in a Scooby was with an 8 year old and a 5 year old in the back with the 2 year old in a recaro childs seat between them on the back seat. At this point the missus said enough was enough and i had to get a sensible family car. I think she was thinking of a Sharan or maybe some kind of SUV........
The Audi RS6 hadn't really been on my radar (I just didn't take an interest in what i considered to be 'old man' cars in those days) until i saw the film 'Layer Cake'. There was something gloriously understated about the RS6, a car that could carry four big blokes comfortably and still be very quick. So when it was time to move into a 'sensible family car' i started looking around at RS6's and saw a nice 50K one owner example for sale in Fontain Motors, Iver (not far from my workplace). Off i went for a test drive. Well, sometimes you just know. I've had it happen once before with a motorycle too- within the first wide ope throttle moment (the salesman knew exactly what he was doing when he told me to floor it on a short stretch of dual carriage way) i knew i had to have the car. Immediately.
Anyway, to cut a very long (10 year) story short, i bought the C5 RS6, fell in love and did all the usual mods- the DRC suspension failed within 3 months on one corner and i did a deal with Fontain that they would buy the Bilsteins all round if i paid the labour for them to fit them. I then sent the car up to Unit 20 in the Wirral and had them go round the whole car doing everything that the full Audi main dealer service had neglected or not picked up on. What with new discs and pads all round the bill was about 5k but to be honest it was money well spent as i never had another issue with the car. Every year the car would take me and the family from London to the Alps at cruising speeds you would not get away in the UK (remember this was before the French went mad and started caning us for speeding, when 50 euros would be the end of the matter.....).
During the time i owned the C5 it was serviced annually at MRC in Banbury and i gave them free rein to do any work they thought the car required. I also had them do two maps over the years, the first a stage 1 that was about 500bhp on BP 98 and the second a stage 2 which required Shell 99 and was a result of me replacing the standard exhaust with a resonated miltek. That map had the car running 530bhp. The car was extremely rapid.
As many of you will know, the weak point (and source of fear) for all C5 RS6 owners is the gearbox. Rumour had it that firstly, the ZF box was only designed to handle 500bhp and secondly that when the weather is very cold and the turbos are giving more boost the standard car comes pretty close to the torque limit (the C5 RS6 engine was built by Cosworth and generally made every bit of its claimed horsepower/torque and sometimes more). Thirdly, Audi for some crazy reason had decided not to put gearbox oil changes on the service schedule, instead calling the box 'sealed' with 'long life' oil. The very helpful and knowledgeable people at MRC (thank you Ben and Doug) advised me to change the gear box oil every second service regardless of mileage which i diligently listened to and asked them to do for me. The other piece of really great advice they gave me was 'don't launch it' and 'back off a tiny bit when the box is changing from 1st to 2nd gears. I am pretty mechanically sympathetic anyway and this advice was part of my driving style anyway. What i learned over the years was, don't use kick down, instead use the manual flappy paddles to change down when required to reduce the torque shock to the gearbox of a kickdown. Finally to use 'sport' mode when driving quick so the car was in the correct gear and was less likely to kickdown two gears which, when it happened in 'normal' drive mode was incredbly hard on the torque converter once the car was mapped to 530bhp. (Standard these cars run 450bhp).
You may be wondering how much a C5 RS6 was to run, as i had one for 10+ years: It pretty much evened out like this for servicing- £500 one year, then £1000 the next, then £500 the year after then £1000 the following year (dependent on 'big' service or 'small' service). Not crippling for a 530bhp car that cost more than 70K new. It was worth every penny!!!
First stage 1 map-
Stage 2 map-
|https://thumbsnap.com/o4UNeA5M[/url]
Anyway, moving onto the subject of this thread:
My dads nextdoor neighbour was a petrol head and while i had the C5 RS6 he also had one. His was the rare Plus model.
He sold it due to gearbox worries and decided to get the C6. I had been impressed with the C6 ever since i went to an RS6 owners meet up in Kent when the C6 was first released and i got a ride down a country lane in one that Doug at MRC had just mapped. It was viciously quick. I wasn't as keen on the C6 looks as the more aggressive original C5 but every time i went to MRC Doug and Ben would be telling me the latest mapping figures they were getting on the C6's and being really positive about the strength of the gearboxs (as i've already said, mention gearboxes to a C5 owner and they literally shiver.....).
Well my dads neighbour bought a beautiful C6 with MTM upgrades and set about adding very tasteful bits and pieces to it (MTM wheels and carbon everywhere). He also took it to MRC and had its map upgraded from mild generic map the previous owner had fitted from another tuner and had MRC go to town with their full bespoke Stage 2 map to it on the rolling road. the map gave it an astounding 755PS (748bhp) and 1084NM
Every Sunday i would go for lunch at my dads and see this guy detailing his C6. He was mad for it. All four wheels off every weekend to get the brake dust cleaned off. He was a proper hobbyist detailer. After about 2 years of this i said to him "When you sell it, please give me first refusal". He said he would and i would remind him of our agreement every six months or so.
I didn't rush things as my family were all grown up and i had bigger fish to fry in my petrol heads collection. Although i had kept the C5, it was really only being used for family holidays as i had bought myself a Gen1 997 Turbo for commuting which was my first Porsche. I loved it, and so when a couple of years later a Gen 2 997 Turbo S came up at my dealers with only 800 miles on it (at 6 year old!) i bought it. I had pretty much forgotten about my arrangement with the nextdoor neighbour and was enjoying the 997 and feeling secure that i had a bats
t mental C5 for when i needed more than 2 seats.
However, i had also told my cousin to bear me in mind when he wanted to sell his C7 RS6 (as he really looks after his motors and had spent 4K plus at Topaz getting the whole thing PPF'd.). He phoned me one day and offered me the car but the time wasn't right, i didn't have the money liquid and i couldn't really justify having the 997 and a 50K+ RS6 so i turned his offer down. That was painful for me and i regretted it as i knew i'd missed a great car with a known history.
Fast forward a year or so and it's early 2021 and my dad calls me "You know our old neighbour, the one that moved to Bournemouth? Well he's been in touch wanting your email address as he says you wanted first refusal on his RS6".
I had had the best part of 12 months off work due to Covid and funds were a bit tight but i knew i wouldn't get another opportunity to get into such a nicely specced RS6 owned by someone i knew hadn't thrashed it. This was compounded by the fact that the new ULEZ was about to come into force at the top of my road (i live just off the London Sth Circular road). So i made contact. He wanted top, top money for it. It was a great car but i needed to have a bit of haggle and find a figure that was fair to him but wouldn't leave me feeling like my pants had been pulled down. A compromise was made and we found a fair figure we were both happy with and he brought it up to London.
So, the car had already had the 'coolant pipes' done (basically Audi ran alloy coolant pipes behind the front wheel arch which corrode and can let go in a very big, dangerous and expensive way). I asked if MRC or Unit 20 had done them and he said, no, they were done very early on by an Audi technician who worked privately right at the beginning of people starting to have problems before a standard operating procedure had been agreed on. The thing is, i am a bit OCD (as you've probably already worked out), and from my research i knew that like most things Audi RS6 wise, the specialists have got better and better at sorting this issue as they have got more experienced with it. So i put the coolant pipes on my 'things to do list'.
Next, he hadn't done the well known '50p' oil seal. There is a seal on the C6's that progressively weaps oil. His answer was 'my car doesn't lose any oil so the seal isn't on my list'. I knew that in a 70,000 mile RS6 running a map it was only a matter of time so that went on my 'urgent' list.
The good news is that recently one particular specialist - Unit 20 in Wirral (who are absolutely excellent technicians) had developed a work flow for changing the seal without taking the engine out (all specialists and Audi main dealers had been removing the engine up to this point). If my understanding is correct, they undo the engine mounts and slide the engine forward as far as i goes which *just* allows them the room to change the seal.
With these jobs in mind i pootled around commuting in the car from SW London to Iver in Bucks each day and was incredibly impressed but didn't really have the room to open the car up properly. I was also incredibly busy at work so didn't have the time to really get out driving the car in a spirited fashion.
One morning on the way to work i lost all the brake fluid so i got on the phone to both MRC and Grizz at Unit 20. I was about to leave the country for two months for work and wanted the car to be dealt with whilst i was away. MRC were booked up, so was Unit 20 but Grizz kindly agreed to send a low loader to pick the car up and leave it in his car park for a few weeks agreeing to have it finished before i returned to the UK.
I asked him to go round the car and do everything. I told him to look at the coolant pipe fix and if he thought he version was more reliable to redo the whole thing. Do the 50p oil seal. There were quite a few other bits and pieces too (the steering column motor wasn't working up and down, only in and out).
When i returned to the UK the car was ready. History repeated itself with a very large but certainly fair bill from Unit 20 for going through the car and sorting anything and everything to a high standard. The whole bill was about 6K inc VAT. I was confident thought that my strategy of trusting Unit 20 had paid off with the C5 and given me many years of reliable continental family motoring.
These last few weeks i have been driving to work, doing one day in the 997 Turbo S, then the next day in the RS6 on a mix of motorways, dual carriageways and country roads. What i have discovered is pretty crazy: in a straight line the RS6 is quicker despite the 997 being the fastest car i have ever driven by quite some margin up until now.
I have fallen completely in love with it.
Here it is with my son's JCW Works (remember the 2 year old sitting in the back of the Type UK Sti Scooby driving up the Alps? Well now the 2 year old is 19 years old and has his own performance car!)
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/ccHNGNc4[/url]
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/JyJgKTsw[/url]
I always meant to do a 'Readers car' thread on my C5 RS6 but never got around to it despite owning it from 2010 until about 6 months ago.
I was completely immersed in rally type cars through my twenties and thirties, having a 16 valve Lancia Integrale, then a Subaru WR Prodrive (see my other reader cars thread about that car that i still own: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=16... ), then i moved on into a Subaru widetrack Type UK blob eye. At this point in my life i had two small children and then a third child joined our family. We have always driven to the alps each winter to go skiing and with the small children the Scoobies were perfect but as they grew and number 3 arrived i knew my time in japanese rally cars was running out. My last trip up the mountains in a Scooby was with an 8 year old and a 5 year old in the back with the 2 year old in a recaro childs seat between them on the back seat. At this point the missus said enough was enough and i had to get a sensible family car. I think she was thinking of a Sharan or maybe some kind of SUV........
The Audi RS6 hadn't really been on my radar (I just didn't take an interest in what i considered to be 'old man' cars in those days) until i saw the film 'Layer Cake'. There was something gloriously understated about the RS6, a car that could carry four big blokes comfortably and still be very quick. So when it was time to move into a 'sensible family car' i started looking around at RS6's and saw a nice 50K one owner example for sale in Fontain Motors, Iver (not far from my workplace). Off i went for a test drive. Well, sometimes you just know. I've had it happen once before with a motorycle too- within the first wide ope throttle moment (the salesman knew exactly what he was doing when he told me to floor it on a short stretch of dual carriage way) i knew i had to have the car. Immediately.
Anyway, to cut a very long (10 year) story short, i bought the C5 RS6, fell in love and did all the usual mods- the DRC suspension failed within 3 months on one corner and i did a deal with Fontain that they would buy the Bilsteins all round if i paid the labour for them to fit them. I then sent the car up to Unit 20 in the Wirral and had them go round the whole car doing everything that the full Audi main dealer service had neglected or not picked up on. What with new discs and pads all round the bill was about 5k but to be honest it was money well spent as i never had another issue with the car. Every year the car would take me and the family from London to the Alps at cruising speeds you would not get away in the UK (remember this was before the French went mad and started caning us for speeding, when 50 euros would be the end of the matter.....).
During the time i owned the C5 it was serviced annually at MRC in Banbury and i gave them free rein to do any work they thought the car required. I also had them do two maps over the years, the first a stage 1 that was about 500bhp on BP 98 and the second a stage 2 which required Shell 99 and was a result of me replacing the standard exhaust with a resonated miltek. That map had the car running 530bhp. The car was extremely rapid.
As many of you will know, the weak point (and source of fear) for all C5 RS6 owners is the gearbox. Rumour had it that firstly, the ZF box was only designed to handle 500bhp and secondly that when the weather is very cold and the turbos are giving more boost the standard car comes pretty close to the torque limit (the C5 RS6 engine was built by Cosworth and generally made every bit of its claimed horsepower/torque and sometimes more). Thirdly, Audi for some crazy reason had decided not to put gearbox oil changes on the service schedule, instead calling the box 'sealed' with 'long life' oil. The very helpful and knowledgeable people at MRC (thank you Ben and Doug) advised me to change the gear box oil every second service regardless of mileage which i diligently listened to and asked them to do for me. The other piece of really great advice they gave me was 'don't launch it' and 'back off a tiny bit when the box is changing from 1st to 2nd gears. I am pretty mechanically sympathetic anyway and this advice was part of my driving style anyway. What i learned over the years was, don't use kick down, instead use the manual flappy paddles to change down when required to reduce the torque shock to the gearbox of a kickdown. Finally to use 'sport' mode when driving quick so the car was in the correct gear and was less likely to kickdown two gears which, when it happened in 'normal' drive mode was incredbly hard on the torque converter once the car was mapped to 530bhp. (Standard these cars run 450bhp).
You may be wondering how much a C5 RS6 was to run, as i had one for 10+ years: It pretty much evened out like this for servicing- £500 one year, then £1000 the next, then £500 the year after then £1000 the following year (dependent on 'big' service or 'small' service). Not crippling for a 530bhp car that cost more than 70K new. It was worth every penny!!!
First stage 1 map-
Stage 2 map-
|https://thumbsnap.com/o4UNeA5M[/url]Anyway, moving onto the subject of this thread:
My dads nextdoor neighbour was a petrol head and while i had the C5 RS6 he also had one. His was the rare Plus model.
He sold it due to gearbox worries and decided to get the C6. I had been impressed with the C6 ever since i went to an RS6 owners meet up in Kent when the C6 was first released and i got a ride down a country lane in one that Doug at MRC had just mapped. It was viciously quick. I wasn't as keen on the C6 looks as the more aggressive original C5 but every time i went to MRC Doug and Ben would be telling me the latest mapping figures they were getting on the C6's and being really positive about the strength of the gearboxs (as i've already said, mention gearboxes to a C5 owner and they literally shiver.....).
Well my dads neighbour bought a beautiful C6 with MTM upgrades and set about adding very tasteful bits and pieces to it (MTM wheels and carbon everywhere). He also took it to MRC and had its map upgraded from mild generic map the previous owner had fitted from another tuner and had MRC go to town with their full bespoke Stage 2 map to it on the rolling road. the map gave it an astounding 755PS (748bhp) and 1084NM
Every Sunday i would go for lunch at my dads and see this guy detailing his C6. He was mad for it. All four wheels off every weekend to get the brake dust cleaned off. He was a proper hobbyist detailer. After about 2 years of this i said to him "When you sell it, please give me first refusal". He said he would and i would remind him of our agreement every six months or so.
I didn't rush things as my family were all grown up and i had bigger fish to fry in my petrol heads collection. Although i had kept the C5, it was really only being used for family holidays as i had bought myself a Gen1 997 Turbo for commuting which was my first Porsche. I loved it, and so when a couple of years later a Gen 2 997 Turbo S came up at my dealers with only 800 miles on it (at 6 year old!) i bought it. I had pretty much forgotten about my arrangement with the nextdoor neighbour and was enjoying the 997 and feeling secure that i had a bats
t mental C5 for when i needed more than 2 seats.However, i had also told my cousin to bear me in mind when he wanted to sell his C7 RS6 (as he really looks after his motors and had spent 4K plus at Topaz getting the whole thing PPF'd.). He phoned me one day and offered me the car but the time wasn't right, i didn't have the money liquid and i couldn't really justify having the 997 and a 50K+ RS6 so i turned his offer down. That was painful for me and i regretted it as i knew i'd missed a great car with a known history.
Fast forward a year or so and it's early 2021 and my dad calls me "You know our old neighbour, the one that moved to Bournemouth? Well he's been in touch wanting your email address as he says you wanted first refusal on his RS6".
I had had the best part of 12 months off work due to Covid and funds were a bit tight but i knew i wouldn't get another opportunity to get into such a nicely specced RS6 owned by someone i knew hadn't thrashed it. This was compounded by the fact that the new ULEZ was about to come into force at the top of my road (i live just off the London Sth Circular road). So i made contact. He wanted top, top money for it. It was a great car but i needed to have a bit of haggle and find a figure that was fair to him but wouldn't leave me feeling like my pants had been pulled down. A compromise was made and we found a fair figure we were both happy with and he brought it up to London.
So, the car had already had the 'coolant pipes' done (basically Audi ran alloy coolant pipes behind the front wheel arch which corrode and can let go in a very big, dangerous and expensive way). I asked if MRC or Unit 20 had done them and he said, no, they were done very early on by an Audi technician who worked privately right at the beginning of people starting to have problems before a standard operating procedure had been agreed on. The thing is, i am a bit OCD (as you've probably already worked out), and from my research i knew that like most things Audi RS6 wise, the specialists have got better and better at sorting this issue as they have got more experienced with it. So i put the coolant pipes on my 'things to do list'.
Next, he hadn't done the well known '50p' oil seal. There is a seal on the C6's that progressively weaps oil. His answer was 'my car doesn't lose any oil so the seal isn't on my list'. I knew that in a 70,000 mile RS6 running a map it was only a matter of time so that went on my 'urgent' list.
The good news is that recently one particular specialist - Unit 20 in Wirral (who are absolutely excellent technicians) had developed a work flow for changing the seal without taking the engine out (all specialists and Audi main dealers had been removing the engine up to this point). If my understanding is correct, they undo the engine mounts and slide the engine forward as far as i goes which *just* allows them the room to change the seal.
With these jobs in mind i pootled around commuting in the car from SW London to Iver in Bucks each day and was incredibly impressed but didn't really have the room to open the car up properly. I was also incredibly busy at work so didn't have the time to really get out driving the car in a spirited fashion.
One morning on the way to work i lost all the brake fluid so i got on the phone to both MRC and Grizz at Unit 20. I was about to leave the country for two months for work and wanted the car to be dealt with whilst i was away. MRC were booked up, so was Unit 20 but Grizz kindly agreed to send a low loader to pick the car up and leave it in his car park for a few weeks agreeing to have it finished before i returned to the UK.
I asked him to go round the car and do everything. I told him to look at the coolant pipe fix and if he thought he version was more reliable to redo the whole thing. Do the 50p oil seal. There were quite a few other bits and pieces too (the steering column motor wasn't working up and down, only in and out).
When i returned to the UK the car was ready. History repeated itself with a very large but certainly fair bill from Unit 20 for going through the car and sorting anything and everything to a high standard. The whole bill was about 6K inc VAT. I was confident thought that my strategy of trusting Unit 20 had paid off with the C5 and given me many years of reliable continental family motoring.
These last few weeks i have been driving to work, doing one day in the 997 Turbo S, then the next day in the RS6 on a mix of motorways, dual carriageways and country roads. What i have discovered is pretty crazy: in a straight line the RS6 is quicker despite the 997 being the fastest car i have ever driven by quite some margin up until now.
I have fallen completely in love with it.
Here it is with my son's JCW Works (remember the 2 year old sitting in the back of the Type UK Sti Scooby driving up the Alps? Well now the 2 year old is 19 years old and has his own performance car!)
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/ccHNGNc4[/url][url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/JyJgKTsw[/url]Edited by Carlson W6 on Saturday 11th September 21:41
Edited by Carlson W6 on Saturday 11th September 21:47
Lovely car you have, and sounds like it has been looked after! It seems this is the thread to post a photo so here’s my second C6 RS6, had one 5 years ago and just had to have another. Similar car history to yours, also had my run of Imprezas, actually sold my last C6 for an S203 then a fully forged 2.5 Hawkeye. Miss them sometimes!
Mine is off to MRC next week for downpipes and stage 2, hoping for just shy of 800 but let’s see what happens!
Mine is off to MRC next week for downpipes and stage 2, hoping for just shy of 800 but let’s see what happens!
ninepoint2 said:
The C6 RS6 is a wonderful thing, both the coolant pipes and 50p oils seal were done on mine by my trusty local very good mechanic without taking the engine out. I forget the cost of the pipes but the oil seal was £750 including parts which included a "casing" part that had cracked.
This is a real beauty. I really looked hard for a daytona grey one but most are down south and very abused. So ended up with monza silver. I noticed your also up here in bonny Scotland. Could I ask who did your coolant pipes. Mine are not looking great
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