RS6 Inspection... current car on eBay

[RS2]

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. I checked with MRC and 10-11 BAR (that's 147 to 162psi) is normal and perfectly acceptable.

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.

I offered less than the dealer was prepared to take and I guess I won't be hearing from him again. It's not a bad car, but I estimated that even with me carrying out all of the work (including the gearbox rebuild) I would be spending another £2k on top of whatever I managed to buy it for. If I factored the hours in as well, I may as well go and buy a car for £9.5-10K.

I hope that someone buys it and brings it back to it's best but it's a slightly and unloved example of what I view as being an awesome vehicle.

MG

[Mr Footlong]

It's not a bad car

Welcome. Hate to disagree with your statement above but with all your findings, that is a rolling toilet sadly. The previous owner didn't spend a penny on that by the sound of it.

[Daveperc]

+1

Look somewhere else - that will cost north of £10K to get working and sorted

There are better ones out there!

Dave

[sulli]

Very comprehensive, cheers.
I reckon there's a lot more than £2k to spend there, what is it up for?

[cfcdoc]

Very comprehensive, cheers.
I reckon there's a lot more than £2k to spend there, what is it up for?

Hopefully a mars bar and a packet of mccoys judging by that review...

[sulli]

Very comprehensive, cheers.
I reckon there's a lot more than £2k to spend there, what is it up for?

Hopefully a mars bar and a packet of mccoys judging by that review...

Lol. The crisps is too generous, fun size mars bar only...

[ahoooga]

and it's currently on eBay being sold as spares or repairs. It's done 138936 miles.

I did read your post, but normally the line I quoted you on is enough for me to skip an advert.
There's 3 words that just don't go together when your looking for a 6 imho, "RS , spares , repairs" . the minute you see those 3 words in the same advert, walk away...........QUICKLY.
But 10/10 for reporting your findings on that particular car.

the fact its advertised as "spares or repairs" limits the comeback on the seller if you went back with any problems, thats 'if' he's a dealer

[RS2]

I must admit, I can see it being a money pit.

MG

[Mr Footlong]

Dude, if you haven't owned one before then I promise you, you have nooooooooooooooooooooooooo idea! You have to buy a really good one for it not to be a money pit. Saying that, I bought a pretty good one then spent 1.5 times again modding it and perfecting it.

[ahoooga]

If your actively looking to buy a 6 , put a 'wanted' ad in the 'cars' forum on here http://forum.rs246.com/viewforum.php?f=63

tell what your budget is in the ad , and see if any members are selling around your price.

[the6]

Ive been watching that just to see what happens, its a good job you declined, or indeed they declined your more than likely fantastic and well over the odds offer.. You have gotten away with that one..

You get what you pay for and in this cars case... You end up with a lump of blue

[Maximo]

I'm sure I spotted this car driving around Swindon over the weekend?

[ahoooga]

swindon is its location acc to fleabay . Item#251261127014 . just stick that number in fleabays search box

[mik15]

all those faults are common to RS6 at some point in its life(commonly after it hits 100k if not addressed), however, as others have highlighted already it hasn't really been taken care of, probably has had a few owners which bought the car just for the sake of "owning" an RS6 for a couple of months and when they realized how much it costs to fix some issues they got rid of it...if the car is accident free and cosmetically is ok, for the right price it does worth buying it if you really intend to keep it and bring it back to what is suppose to be, of course the first thing you'd have to do is to get the engine/gearbox out and do a full overhaul!

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 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!

[sulli]

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!