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Long story short I bought an RS6 last week of a reputable fellow, full service history at Audi and specialists, drove like a dream etc. Turns out it doesn't like being outside...

Got in tonight and must have taken 2 pints of water out of the drivers side footwell front and rear. Started it up and the ABS and ESP lights stay on. OK, I'll take it for a little drive as have had a long day and wanted cheering up.

Drove it 10 miles, initially thinking it felt a bit down on power but thought little of it. Stopped at a junction and... no drive. Then drive. Then a clunk changing from 1st to 2nd (or maybe 2nd to 3rd).

Decided I would limp home - set cruise to 50 and prayed. After a couple of minutes, the revs climbed for no reason - to say 5,000 RPM but with no drive. Then the revs dropped to nothing and the oil light came on (I assume because the computer thought there was no oil pressure).

Stopped the car in a layby - turned off for 5 mins. When I turned back on, no ABS / ESP light. No gearbox issues but power still felt down. Set cruise back to 50 and on I go.

All fine until I get 500 yards from home (at a junction again). Clunk clunk into 2nd /3rd, and limited power. ESP light back on...

Not the best start to the weekend all in all, but a couple of questions for the experts out there:

1 - will check the gutters / filters tomorrow as I am assuming they are blocked which will hopefully sort the water ingress.
2 - any chance the water was the cause of all the problems?
3 - Assuming this is new gearbox material....?

Oh, and hi by the way!

Cheers

David

Hi - and of course FON

Water in Pax footwell is a common problem - either blocked drain from outside, or the feed pipe to the rear washer which runs along that side has parted. Do a bit of a search and you'll soon find what you need to do to cure it.

The water may well be the cause of the other problem - the TCU is in that footwell, and doesn't like swimming!!

With a bit of luck, once you have everything dried out all will be well.

Welcome to RS6 ownership!!

Dave

Where did you buy the car from ?

Stuart

Reject the car immediately! Cite sale of goods act and anything else you can think of.

I wouldn't even consider anything else apart from trying to get my money back at this stage.

Thanks for the replies. No can do unfortunately, other than appealing to the seller's good nature - private sale and buyer beware etc

One other thought of it helps to diagnose - there was no forward movement if I took my foot off the brake in first, but in reverse it was as responsive as usual. Assuming this points more towards a gearbox issue than electrical / water ingress issues but grateful for any views.

Thanks again

It's not an avus silver Avant from Stafford way at all is it

Stuart

Ok, I picked that up wrong and thought you'd purchased from a dealer, sorry... lack of forward drive is not a good sign, but we really need to get some diagnostic gear on the car to see a bit more. Do you have VCDS? If not, jump onto ebay and buy a blue kkl cable. Will be 5 quid or so.... that will let you connect to the engine and gearbox ecus with VCDS lite. If your lucky, it could be a solenoid fault that controls the clutch packs... not impossible given the water ingress.

Will do and will update - thanks. And no - was a private sale, not the Silver one

Cheers

Sorry to hear that.
Nevertheless welcome to the Forum dpsoden
FON

This:

Daveperc wrote:Hi - and of course FON
The water may well be the cause of the other problem - the TCU is in that footwell, and doesn't like swimming!!

and this:

sweegie wrote:Ok, I picked that up wrong and thought you'd purchased from a dealer, sorry... lack of forward drive is not a good sign, but we really need to get some diagnostic gear on the car to see a bit more.

I also thought it was a dealer purchase. The way the OP was worded.

Where abouts in the country are you, someone nearby might have a VCDS so that you can scan for any error codes but TBH a footwell full of water could mean the end of the TCU (gearbox ECU)?

Sorry for the confusion re the purchase and thanks for the help.

Pretty sure the electrics are *****. Drained the plenum today - usual culprit of a blocked drain - and took mats out / got the aquavac on it. Now a case of drying it out which will not be so easy in this weather.

Started it up to try and turn around in the drive and get the battery conditioner on it as it will be stationary for a while. But - no drive in reverse this time and then stuck in neutral (assuming the sensor for the footbrake was not working).

Have a specialist coming over this week to get the Codes read and will keep updating.

Any ideas on the replacement cost of a TCU?

Thanks again

David

Just had a look on eBay. Feck me, they are going for £300 up! Bonkers. I bought one for about £80 a couple of years ago.

http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40 ... B&_sacat=0

Hopefully yours'll dry up OK.

I bet it's physically the same as the other 5HP24A controllers that are going for a quarter of the price. I wonder how difficult it would be to flash the RS6 program onto one.

Ive heard of folk having much success cross flashing gearbox code. Not all are compatible but id take a wager that one from a similar era could take the rs6 binary. I have the solder and eeprom tools to do this but ha e never had the need. Happy to experiment though if it will assist....