Evo's 'Fast Fleet' RS6 - End of term report

[wazza]

It's happened: the RS6 has left the evo car park for the last time. I'd been eyeing the day in question (January 6), ringed in red on the calendar, with all the relish I normally reserve for dentist's appointments. Finally it arrived. After 15 months and 42,000 miles, Audi sent the heavies round and extracted the RS6 from my grasp. I can't blame them - it was their car after all - but life's just not the same anymore. For a start, I'm no longer everyone's best friend on a Friday, when colleagues used to queue outside my office, armed with reasons to borrow the big Audi for the weekend. Weddings, surfing weekends, holidays, skiing, collecting Christmas trees... you name it, the RS6 had it covered. In fact, the hardest part of living with the RS6 was hanging onto the keys.

Photographers loved it too. Even in this digital age snappers love to take every single bit of kit they own absolutely everywhere, just in case, meaning it's the overloaded photographer's car that usually holds up the road test convoy. Not when it was the Audi. Staff photographer Andy Morgan and the RS6 became a speed partnership that even Frank Williams would have been proud of. On last month's Ferrari supercar test in wet Wales the Audi was just about the quickest car there.

In fact 'quick' doesn't really cover it. The RS6 just demolished journey times without breaking sweat. Rarely were the outer reaches of the tacho explored; there was simply no need; all the work was done by 3000rpm. Overtakes were best accomplished on part throttle so as not to frighten other road-users, or by dabbing one of the gear-change paddles to lock the auto into a gear and surf the torque - 413lb ft at 1950rpm. And wet roads made no difference; announcing that you'd seen the traction control light flashing was greeted with applause in the office. The laws of physics seemed not to apply to the big Audi.

After once seeing 170mph on the speedo, I was intrigued to discover just how fast the RS6 would go. So when plans were made to take a group of 200mph cars to Germany (issue 055), the RS6 went along too. Just to check Audi wasn't fibbing about the car having a limiter, we first sent it up to Superchips. Turned out there were loads of 'soft' limiters that took several hours to unearth and disable before, finally, the RS6 was unshackled (John Hayman even achieved an heroic 205mph on Superchips' rollers, which just goes to show what you can do when you don't have to worry about air resistance). After all this work it was galling that the RS6 never got a clear enough run in Germany to better a true 175mph; I reckon close to 190mph would have been on given the right stretch of road.

Clocking up so many miles meant we saw the local Audi dealer rather too often for my accountant's liking, the service indicator coming on every 10,000 miles or so. The visits weren't cheap either, a basic 10K service costing around £256, a 20K service a whopping £456. The other major costs were tyres, which seemed to last 12-15,000miles, (around £800 a set), and brakes, which wouldn't do more than a few laps at a trackday before wilting into a horrible, juddery mess. New discs and pads all-round were fitted at 10,000 miles and 28,000 miles, costing £927 a time. Supercar performance, but supercar running costs, too. What wasn't in doubt, though, was the build quality. Despite our very best efforts, the one and only warranty claim we had was for a silly plastic clip on the luggage cover.

On my last day with the car I treated it to a tank of Optimax, its favourite tipple, and decided to take the long way home for one final time. But as I drove through the back roads of Oxfordshire I remembered why I'd tended to stick to the main road; on challenging tarmac the RS6's Achilles' heel was cruelly exposed. Truth was, the big Audi never really impressed once you made the chassis work, soon running out of suspension travel on a typical British B-road as well as feeling a little loose, with none of the precision you get with a modern, ultra-stiff chassis. So, why is it that, even with the RS6, Audi can't make an involving drivers' car any more? A question I once put to Audi's charismatic head of vehicle dynamics, Jos van As. 'I'm an engineer, not a bloody magician,' was his witty retort.

With a 4.2-litre twin-turbo V8 hanging out beyond the front wheels, it's no surprise that the RS6 is prone to understeer which, combined with typically feel-free Audi steering, means back roads aren't much fun. Turning off the stability control is a waste of time, as there's nothing to explore on the other side of the electronic safety net. A fact confirmed with Jonathan Palmer, on the way to a pub lunch one day, via a couple of laps of his Autodrome. And yet he loved the car - and so do I. It's the British-built engine that makes it so special, the burbling swell of power soon becoming addictive, and all wrapped up in such a beautifully engineered, user-friendly package, good enough for the likes of Nick Mason, Ross Brawn and Jay Kay to use as daily transport.

A strange thing happens when you live with the RS6. After a while you stop grumbling about the dull steering and start to revel in the uniqueness of the RS6's other, rather more overwhelming talents. They're so special that I guarantee the RS6 will become a legend in years to come. In fact, around the evo office, it already is.

Words/Pictures: Harry Metcalfe
Copy from www.evo.co.uk

Date acquired Sept 2002
Duration of test 16 months
Total mileage: 42,150
Average consumption 19.7mpg
Servicing costs £1396
Consumables (tyres, oil, etc) £1680 (tyres), £1854
Extra Costs £0
Price new £62,045
Trade-in value £44,000
Depreciation £18,045

[Gareth]

That trade in value is a joke...caught my eye when I read the original article [img]images/graemlins/rocketwhore.gif[/img].

No way a car with that kind of mileage would attract any bid starting with a '4'... [img]images/graemlins/nodder.gif[/img]

[Joshie]

Looking at the Sunday Times motoring classifieds yesterday I saw a few RS4's advertised at £48K-£49K, and the above mileage is way above average so I thought £44K was about right Gareth - must admit though compared with the RS4 it does seem to be huge depreciation.

[JohnH]

I can only assume that Audi have a buy-back agreement with them and they have put it back in their Press Fleet as no dealer would pay 44K for an RS6 with 42K miles on it!!

[martian]

no dealer would pay 44K for an RS6 with 42K miles on it!!

To be fair I think you're right if it was a cash deal but if you wanted to trade in this RS6 against a new A8 (for example) which they've got trouble shifting, I bet they'd give you 44k on trade-in. They just would'nt give you a good price on the A8.
IMO trade-in values are fairly meaningless without knowing the full circumstances of the new vehicle.

[Nordschleife]

Guys
I'm afraid that, like an awful lot else in Evo, this is a load of cod - the car has always been on the Audi GB Press fleet - and it wasn't at all fast when they did the 200 mph issue, mark you there were only 2 cars in the article which did go more than 200 mph, the Bimoto and a Ruf Porsche.
The story as written bore only a slight resemblence to what actually happened.
Previously I had always thought that Evo was a good magazine, now I know that its full of BS; Jethro seems an OK guy however.

R+C

[martian]

Date acquired Sept 2002
Duration of test 16 months
Total mileage: 42,150
Average consumption 19.7mpg
Servicing costs £1396
Consumables (tyres, oil, etc) £1680 (tyres), £1854
Extra Costs £0
Price new £62,045
Trade-in value £44,000
Depreciation £18,045

Some of these figures look doubtful to me (although I don't doubt Evo's honesty) but 42000 miles - 4 services minimum -and servicing costs £1396?[img]images/graemlins/3flypigs.gif[/img]
I don't think so.
The consumables figure above is only Brakes and tyres (if you read the cost breakdown in the text) so that means the servicing costs of £1396 must include plugs , filters , oil etc as well as labour. My last service cost me £638 plus vat without any tyres, brakes etc.- and that's ONE service!

The other point is - If all the staff used it and obviously drove it 'fairly energetically', how the hell did they get 19.7 mpg?? - I've only had 17.5 mpg since I had mine.
Shome mistake surely!!

[bjacks]

Perhaps they had it from 20k miles on and only serviced twice.
I too always thought that Evo was a good mag, I enjoy their articles, especially when they do stuff like take a Lambo over the Alps.

Oh well.

[peterb]

If all the staff used it and obviously drove it 'fairly energetically', how the hell did they get 19.7 mpg?? - I've only had 17.5 mpg since I had mine.
Shome mistake surely!!

Admittedly, not driving 'energetically' (the wife was in the passenger seat!), but after my weekend trip to north Norfolk and back, the DIS is showing a 25.4 mpg average! I'll check out the actual figure from miles/fuel and report back.

[martian]

Peter- if you're driving mostly urban roads swiftly with a bit of rural thrown in, how many miles do you get before you feel you really have to fill up?

[peterb]

the DIS is showing a 25.4 mpg average!

Okay, by calculation, that works out to 22.96 mpg.

Martian - I don't really do any urban driving with the 6, I prefer to use the A2 TDi for shorter journeys into town (I even take the old Corsa sometimes!). The 6 is used, almost exclusively, for longer rural/motorway journeys. Normal range on a 60-75 litre fill is around 300-350 miles. I've just entered all my fuel figures into a spreadsheet for the purposes of this analysis (but I have only put 20 lots of fuel into the car in 6000 miles/9 months).

[JohnH]

Regarding the servicing costs for the RS6 they stated that the 10K Service was £256 and the 20K service was £456 so I guess if you double those up for the 30K and 40K service you get to around £1400. He also added tyres (12k - 15k miles) £1680 and discs and pads fitted at 10K and 28K miles £1854. This means thathis 42,150 miles cost him £4,930 excluding petrol. Of course it does mean the next owner has a bill of £1700 to pay for new tyres, discs and pads nearly straight away!!!