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I have been a RS6 owner now for two years and had trouble free motoring. That's probably down to the fact that i bought it from a member who along with previous owners looked after it well. Compared to previous performance cars that have cost a fortune the c5 has cost me £3K including services tyres etc so pretty delighted until now.

So a couple of things that have just arisen. One, a leaky radiator and secondly it is time to do the cambelt. Quote from my local garage is a tad over £2K (including VAT) using OEM parts. If I say it quick enough it isn't too bad and her indoors may not hear.
So a couple of questions.
1. Does this quote sound reasonable?
2. The new radiator is a whopping £830. any cheaper alternatives?
3. The Cambelt was done 6 years ago but the car has only done 23,000 miles since. I suppose it makes sense to get the radiator and Cambelt done at the same time to save labour but which is more important in the decision to go ahead, time or mileage?

I was planning to do a number of things in the next month, new tyres, lower arms, respray on the back bumper all of which I had budgeted £1800.

Ideally i would like to spread the costs out.

Any info /ideas would be much appreciated.

It's a fair price given the amount of work involved and the cost of the OEM parts. It's not a particularly hard DIY job, but it is time consuming so that justifies the labour cost. Having said that, if I was going to spend £2k getting it done, I'd want to be sure it was either Unit20 or MRC or another trusted RS6 specialist doing it.

For the radiator, there are 2 versions. One is cheap, and the other is ridiculously expensive. There have been a couple of threads on here in recent times. Have a search. You might be able to adapt the cheaper radiator.

It kinda makes sense to change the radiator at the same time since some of the labour is in common.

I cannot stress this enough-

MRC or Unit 20

I had a new radiator recently and I think I paid something around £800 for the part too.

For that and a cam-belt change, £2k seems pretty reasonable as long as you can trust them to do a good job.

The specialists mentioned already will probably be able to spot any other 'while we are there' jobs... have the experience to see if something else looks ripe for replacement and give some valuable advice.

If they are using all OEM and replacing absolutely everything cambelt wise then thats quite a good deal. If the rad is £800 then the cambelt parts (including all tensioners, belts, water pump etc..) are another £700 plus, so only £500 left for labour (£500/£50 per hour - 10 hours).

Also, I'd expect the cambelt change to include all the pulleys and tensioners, water pump and thermostat. Check out my DIY for the list of parts.

Spot on with the sums, everything is included for both the cambelt and the rad but will check out your DIY just in case. Thanks guys

Shoppinit wrote:...I'd want to be sure it was either Unit20 or MRCor another trusted RS6 specialist doing it.

Or Me, Nobby, Shop, Sweegie and a few other forum members.
For the record, cambelt is not particularly more difficult than any other car, but having the right tools and the service manual is a MUST.

And the patience and diligence to do it right. I've seen cam belts done with tippex by dealers.

I recently got my cambelt done, 999 inc VAT for cambelt + aux, water pump, thermostat, and all rollers and idlers etc!

That was at 4rings in Kent.

I think I paid around £1200 for my cambelt with everything changed that needed to be changed. 2 years on still no rattle on startup which is nice

So add in your radiator your garage seems to be offering to do it at a good price. All that's left is if you have the trust in them to do a decent job

So I find myself in a similar position to OP.
My mostly ultra reliable (for 4 years) C5 RS6 now has a weeping radiator ( I had suspected a minor leak since returning from last years Le Mans, but there was no sign of one when it was having its gearbox service only 500 miles ago)
Turns out it's the expensive rad c£944.
Decision time, do I change the cam belt etc at same time and save a bit on labour even though it's a bit early being only 3.5 years and 26,000 since last change?
I was going to leave it another year, but as I think I'll be keeping it long time, it's a trip up north to Grizz a Unit 20!

I think i'd be going for cam belt change at the same Captain.

Has anyone investigated the cost of re-coring an existing radiator rather than buying a brand new one?

My neighbour (mechanic) suggested radweld or similar.
It might be OK on a Corsa, but probably not a good idea on a RS! or do you know better?