Reliability/running costs

[Seb]

Hello all. My aunt is in the market for a new car - she was rather taken by the BMW 535d, but I'm not happy to see her throw away £45k on a brand new car, especially when she could have a nice second hand RS6 for around £34k. Thing is, I don't want to drop her in it and see her squandering all her money on keeping the thing on the road - the BMW would be expensive enough to service, but I was just after a realistic idea of running costs and how reliable the RS6 actually is. There are a lot of BMW 5 Series owners who have had various problems with their cars, and I don't want to steer her away from that straight into a car that will be even more troublesome. I've seen the servicing costs thread, so I'll take a look at that, but any other information would be excellent. Thanks!

[Nige_RS4]

After doing some research myself, it is clear that the RS6 will be more expensive to run than a new 5-series. The key points to watch on the RS6 are the cambelt (every 40k), tyres (on 19" rims) and discs/pads (seems to be every 15-20k miles) - each one of these is around £1000 a pop. There are obviously the usual servicing costs too, but these will be roughly the same as the beemer, unless BMW are still offering the 3 year servicing deal?

[Seb]

I'm not sure about the three year service inclusive package, I'd have to check. I do know that if she bought a £34k RS6 instead of a £40k 535d, with the low mileage she does each year that £6k saving would be enough for almost 9 years of petrol.

[bobjebb]

I'm just trying to picture MY auntie in an RS6....

[DaveP]

Calm yourself down there Bob....

Young childhood fantasy was it?