The unofficial RS6 buyers guide.

[500bhp]

Excellent Post el ringo

My points to include is....

Running cost
Dont bother to buy a RS6 if £1.20 Ltr + for 99RON fuel worries you. You will soon learn to fill up at £100 a go. Do not use cheap fuel.
The key is how much you drive it. Mine is a 3rd car, and the plan was to keep it for high days and holidays so max £5k miles per year, if that.
The problem is that because it is so good to drive, I have been closer to £20k miles! This is about £6k a year in fuel alone.
I always keep it serviced (with Grizz) but this just quickens cost arriving, not increases them if you see what I mean.
I would estimate also that if the Unmodified car cost £15 -£18K to buy, expect to pay around £10k over time to get everytning sorted. (Did mine within first year) Much better to get it done yourself then you know it is correct and you get the choice of what to do for the list above.. Also your original capital outlay won't depreciate like a new car which is a major running cost factor.
I personally would not bother with a warranty if you are going to mod it as they will wiggle out of claims. Save the money for mods and running cost.

Insurance
Can pay between £500 to well over £1000. Key is to decide if you tell the truth on what you have had done. Who is 100% honest here?
Notice that some classic companies are now offering "agreed value" deals on 5 year old cars. This might be an option.
That is spend £15k on car....£10k to sort it. Declare ALL mods. Agree the value at £25k...not the £12.5k or less that "standard" insurance will then try and pay you if it gets knicked, torched and smashed.


PS all above is not true if the war office is reading. The nice man in the Audi shop gave us all this servicing, fuel, mod parts and new suspension along with the bunch of flowers....

[GardinerG]

Sorry agin- I am not normally so shitty!

Sez who?

Great sticky post...

[Cornishmoocher]

Sorry agin- I am not normally so shitty!

Sez who?

Quick- get my gun, theres a theres a Gardiner......

[Shoppinit]

Link to interesting ownership costs spreadsheet:

http://www.rs246.com/index.php?name=PNp ... ic&t=82989

[HYFR]

Mileage is not a concern on these cars....having been looked after CORRECTLY is!

Also, these cars are done depreciating...yes of course high miles (>100k) will make them slightly cheaper, but not by much

A very cheap super car if you can stomach the running costs

[ChrisRS6]

An excellent thread here!

I've just registered after 'lurking' on here for a while. I'm currently searching for my first RS6 and have found this guide very useful.

I do have one question though - when checking over a potential new car, where do I need to look to find the engine and chassais numbers so I can check them?

Thanks in advance, and I hope that I'll soon become a 'proper' member in the next few weeks. (the MOT runs out in mid Sept on my current car, so want to get an RS6 before having to spend cash getting my old car through another MOT).

[MalcolmSu]

I bought my RS6 at the end of Feb 2008 and said I'd keep it four years. To be honest it's running the smoothest it's ever done right now and I'll be sorry to see it go... Before I put it up for sale I thought I'd update the running costs spreadsheet that Shoppint referenced above. It's attached and anyone contemplating owning a C5 RS6 would do well to read this first!

I bought the car for £29.5k four years ago and having done over 64,000 miles it's taken another £31,816 to keep the car on the road! Albeit the various warranty companies have paid some of that. Check how often tyres, brake disks and pads have had to be replaced over the years - and they're the best part of grand each time. I used to think that the car needed a visit to the garage every 3 to 4 months but I notice lately I've been getting longer out of it and in fact I've just had my longest ever distance - just over 6,000 miles without a trip to a garage! With no DRS, a gearbox replacement with a warranty to July 2012 and a transferable WD warranty until June it should be a 'safe' buy for someone?

I get pretty good fuel consumption out of mine (rarely below 20mpg). Taking an average of £5 per gallon over the years I've probably spent another £15k in fuel!

I still don't know what I'll buy to replace it but it will be a sad day when it goes...

[el_ringo]

It has been just over two years since I last wrote the first version of the buyers guide, and I feel that now is the time up update a few things:-

Not much has changed in the way of running costs, but the price to buy in has fallen to around the £10,000 mark, with some poor examples being had for less. I have seen the odd low mileage Plus appear at a premium but they are few and far between.

The main thing that has changed over the last two years is that fuel is a lot more costly, and is perhaps the single most important factor in driving values down. Insurance is also higher, and from discussion earlier in the year, we found out that the Avant is a fair bit more to insure than the Saloon version – too many bank jobs perhaps.

Suspension wise, there have been some attempts to get the DRC working correctly, and hopefully some more news on that will develop over the next few months. It would be nice to have an easy fix for it, but it is early days yet.

Brakes are still over a grand for a front set, but some people have decided to upgrade to the C6 discs and callipers as they can be had for not a lot more, and stop a lot harder. Unfortunately, you cannot fit this setup if you use any of the 18” wheels.

The gearbox has been talked to death, with some news on new parts to make it stronger, but there is nothing really solid out there yet. Hopefully someone will come up with a hardened predictable version soon.

A few new tyres have come to the market in the past two years, just don’t get anything cheap and nasty would be all that I would advise and check the “knobbly bit” doesn’t rub the sidewall.

Intercooler prices have gone up again to over £1200 for some OEM ones, but many can be repaired for less or you can upgrade to the Wagner for not a lot more money. Watch out for the insurance with this modification though because some companies load the premium a lot more with that upgrade.

Most of the rest is the same IMO.

[Shoppinit]

Good summary.

[bwilliams]

Hello. I did read the first post and I do have one simple question. You say that running costs on the first year are 30 percent of the price. So in theory if I bought one for 20k, it would need 6k in the first year. Here is my big question. Is this based on a car that is driven daily or leisurely? I want to buy one of these for a weekend car only. So two days a week of driving, and around 5k miles a year. What do you think this would run me per year? Thanks

[chunky79]

oh no.
FON

Petrol would be around 15mpg.
Tyres will last you around 2 years, coukld buy <beep> like some or good ones fro around £250 a corner.
Service every year will depend where you take it.

Have a good read through the full c5 section mate

[bam_bam]

Why you gotta dig up a sleeping thread for?

FON.

[Mr V10]

Well, you did ask. In three weeks, I would have had my car a year, and I've done 10k miles. I've added up the maintence costs, so none of this was any tuning work and it comes to £4750. I'm replacing the control arms in the next week or two too, so it will be around £5.5k, add insurance to that and we're up to £7,000, add fuel costs over the year and that's another £4k, so now we're on £11,000, then my tuning work and hello £15,000. It is worth pointing out, nothing major has gone wrong in this year of ownership, oh, my road tax reminder came through the other day too.

[bam_bam]

*maintenance

[Maximo]

I want to buy one of these for a weekend car only.

These cars don't like to be sat around doing nothing. They aren't weekend cars in my view. My guess is you'll end up popping into town to do your shopping and then maybe off to B&Q for something else. Town driving doesn't suit these cars at all, your looking at 5 to 8 mpg and you'll never get it fully warmed up and at it's best. If on the other hand you go for a blast down the motorway or country lane's you'll still end up killing the car off if it's sat doing nothing for the best part of the week, oil needs to keep moving to work as does coolant.

If you want a weekend car then go buy a Caterham or something like that.