RS6 Inspection... current car on eBay

[Revolvo]

A friend of mine bought one with 130k on the clock, we scanned the car before committing to buy it and i was shocked to find no error whatsoever, i thought that the guy had deleted them prior meeting us, so took the car for a hard spin, checked it again and it was the same, and still is today after he my friend drove it for another 3k, including a track day ! Of course he had to do an oil service, gearbox oil service, new tires, left valve cover gasket, axles and drive shaft seals and other small bits(RNS-E, new 19" five spoke rims from Audi) all of these added up to nearly GBP 5K, but the car is running as strong as mine which has close to 90k miles!

Now this is the sort of stuff I like to hear!

I must be very lucky.... 127k on the clock and nothing wrong except for a very recent stone chip crack in radiator. Everything else perfect, except when I put in Shell V racing which puts the TC and ABS lights on. Pays to have full service history it seems but I still know that it isn't going to be a cheap car to maintain and I couldn't contemplate the time or the cost both financially and emotionally of trying to put one right.

[posterboyj]

Might be an interesting project.

[bam_bam]

Hi all,

I've been hanging around in the background for a while and got very close to buying a car on Friday morning but due to the high level of work needed and the asking price, I turned it down.

As I won't be buying the car, I thought I'd put my findings on the here so that anyone else thinking of buying this car could gain from my 1 1/2 hours spent looking over it.

The reg is RS03 TNT and it's currently on eBay being sold as spares or repairs. It's done 138936 miles.

The transmission needs rebuilding. It does drive but as with the other 5HP24A ZF transmissions I've seen, it's got no drive to 1-4th gears. This is a common fault which is due to a bearing failure and then O-ring failure which leads to no oil pressure to clutch pack A (1-4th gears). The result is that the engine revs shoot up and you go no where. Once it's happened for longer than around 5 seconds, the Trans ECU throws up a fault and the gearbox goes into Limp mode (lighting up all of the indicator letters at once). You are then in top gear (5th) with a torque converter that is allowed to slip so that you can drive the car home.

So... onto the other stuff.

I did a compression test. The results were ok ranging from 170psi to 150psi. The lowest cylinder was right rear cylinder (direction etc as sitting in the driving seat). The rest all gave atleast 165psi, even though the battery was dying as I was doing the test.

As above, the battery is dying and will probably need replacing.

The plugs have not been changed recently and were fairly seized in. I used some engine oil on the threads to make sure that they didn't gall up going back in or seize in again so they should be ok.

One of the m5 allen bolts has been rounded off that holds a pipe close to the OS coil packs. One of the coil pack bolts threads (in the rocker cover) has been stripped at NSF coil pack.

The vacuum pipe around the engine bay is generally splitting and needs replacing.

The cam chain tensioners need changing as it's got the "grrrr" sound just above idle which comes and goes.

The alloys need refurbishing.

The front passenger door will not shut in any other way than pushing it to... it needs a new lock/latch.

The front bumper looks as though it's been cracked and then repaired. The paint is good but there are telltale signs at the corners close to the headlights where extra material has been added.

The OSF foglight doesn't work, neither does the telltale indicator inside the car.

The OSR arch has a dent.

The brake discs look ok with plenty of material left although the cross-drill holes are blocked.

The suspension looks to have been replaced with Coil-overs. I didn't have time to jack it up and check what colour or make but there is a C-Spanner in with the tool kit.

The centre arm rest lid hinges are broken as is the latch. I priced up a replacement from VW at about £85 plus vat.

The rear seats (black leather with white piping) have had kiddy seats in and have wear marks from the bottom corners. Whether the dents will come out remains to be seen but the leather is worn also.

The rear seat cup holders are broken and the first aid kit is missing.

The warning triangle cover latch is broken on the back of the tailgate.

The warning light for the tailgate is on all of the time despite me checking that the tailgate was definitely shut properly.

The Menu control knob in the centre console doesn't work anything. I seem to remember that it goes through the menu on the dash (as in my old S8) but no matter what I did, I couldn't get anything from it.

In plugging into the car and checking for faults, I found the following:

Engine

17985 - Right Engine mount - open circuit

17831 - Secondary Air Injection System Bank 1, Insufficient flow

17819 - Secondary Air Injection System Bank 2, Insufficient flow

17865 - Exhaust Gas Temp Sensor 2, open or short to Plus - Intermittent

Transmission - obvious faults to do with rebuild being needed.

Radio

No communications - Intermittent

Tyre Pressure

System Switched Off

I priced up a new Exhaust Temp Sensor at around £300 plus vat from VW.

Last but not least, it's last timing belt change was at 97,000 mile with VW so it's overdue a Timing belt service!!

While it wasn't possible to check that the engine performed properly, the test drive (around the block) was ok. No serious rattles or clonks. The engine pulled ok but sounded slightly rough. I'm not an expert on these engines so I can't say for sure if it sounded 'normal' for an RS6. The last one I service (timing belt service) was over 4 years ago and it performed very well.

Car sounds tip top. Lemonade.

[sweegie]

I'm with Bam, as long as you're a car breaker and the asking price isn't more than £3000.

[RS2]

I'm with Bam, as long as you're a car breaker and the asking price isn't more than £3000.

Wow.. and I thought that I was pushing him hard and my offer was a lot more than that !

MG

[chunky79]

I'm with Bam, as long as you're a car breaker and the asking price isn't more than £3000.

Wow.. and I thought that I was pushing him hard and my offer was a lot more than that !

MG

Well if you're willing to spend around £8k on that then you can have mine for £15k.

[sweegie]

You could spend £6000 on that car in a flash, before you start spending money on the non-essentials. There's much better cars to use as a starting point - chunky's at 15k would probably work out cheaper for ultimately a better car!

But my guess is he's not selling

[ant1]

I paid £6800 for mine with a screwed box however the cars history is immense and all the odd small/large jobs that pop up during certain parts of a RS6s life have been done.

30k of invoices show that. BUT I still spent 8k getting her up to scratch, so point being if it cost me 8k for mine fucks knows what you would pay for that.

[Revolvo]

On German Ebay, there's an avant shell going for €1 and a knackered gearbox also for €1. Also a pair of brake rotors wih 22mm left on them, about €5 an hour ago.

There's also a overhauled gearbox going but they're asking €4,500 for that one. Just to give you an idea of spend level required.

[chunky79]

You could spend £6000 on that car in a flash, before you start spending money on the non-essentials. There's much better cars to use as a starting point - chunky's at 15k would probably work out cheaper for ultimately a better car!

But my guess is he's not selling

I would sell for £16k, otherwise its mine FOREVER.

[RS2]

Well after the seller had time (about a month!) to consider his options, he eventually came back to me on Friday with an acceptance at my offer.

So... I now have some work to do!



A little more looking into thing and it's got a set of Bilstein coil-overs on it, a brand new set of Michelin 255/35/19s (wasn't expecting that) and the most corroded tyre valves (aluminium) that I've ever seen!!

Was tyre pressure monitoring standard? Mine has it but it's been turned off. I know from previous experience that tyre pressure monitoring systems are a ball-ache and they die really quickly when you have someone fitting tyres who doesn't know that the sensors are there!

The drive back was ok. Obviously the gearbox is in limp mode but above 60mph, it still has some serious poke. The dealers son mentioned that it may have been chipped but I've no idea of how to tell and I guess the easiest way will be on the rollers once I've sorted the gearbox. Are there any other ways of knowing?

I think once I've fixed the gearbox, I'll be paying MRC Tuning a visit for a gearbox ECU chip to make it more drivable. £100 is nothing compared with a manual conversion. Yes, I really don't like these Auto boxes!

A manual conversion is on the cards for the future... we'll see how I get on with the reconfigured MRC setup.

I'll probably start a new thread once I get into doing work on it.

MG

[bam_bam]

Well after the seller had time (about a month!) to consider his options, he eventually came back to me on Friday with an acceptance at my offer.

So... I now have some work to do!



A little more looking into thing and it's got a set of Bilstein coil-overs on it, a brand new set of Michelin 255/35/19s (wasn't expecting that) and the most corroded tyre valves (aluminium) that I've ever seen!!

Was tyre pressure monitoring standard? Mine has it but it's been turned off. I know from previous experience that tyre pressure monitoring systems are a ball-ache and they die really quickly when you have someone fitting tyres who doesn't know that the sensors are there!

The drive back was ok. Obviously the gearbox is in limp mode but above 60mph, it still has some serious poke. The dealers son mentioned that it may have been chipped but I've no idea of how to tell and I guess the easiest way will be on the rollers once I've sorted the gearbox. Are there any other ways of knowing?

I think once I've fixed the gearbox, I'll be paying MRC Tuning a visit for a gearbox ECU chip to make it more drivable. £100 is nothing compared with a manual conversion. Yes, I really don't like these Auto boxes!

A manual conversion is on the cards for the future... we'll see how I get on with the reconfigured MRC setup.

I'll probably start a new thread once I get into doing work on it.

Soooo, you're going to fix the autobox but then put a manual in... if you're going to do something, do it right the first time.
How much did you get it for in the end?
TPMS were standard and as you've found, the metal valves take a beating from road crap, yours have probably never been replaced. The batteries only last 4-5 years and most owners switch it off after that, probably something to do with a £500 refresh bill (more than likely £900 if done through a stealer). The battery/sensor packs are about 85quid each and the valves are about 14squids each.

[Mr Footlong]

Sorry but it will always be my opinion that you have bought the wrong car for wasting your time putting a manual in but heyho. I too want to know what the final price was.