Home Maintainence

[Madmass]

Ok, first post, so please be gentle with me.

I've been reading the various posts here for a while as I have always been into things that travel quickly starting with an A.

I had various Audis in my early to mid twenties, but moved away from them to, dare I say Subaru's and at the moment Volvo (D5) due to small people arriving on the scene. But I now have the means to return to the fold (or will have very soon) and am seriously considering a 2003 RS6 saloon or 2005 S4 (cannot run to the latest RS4)

Having read numerous posts on the cost of ownership of the RS models, particually the RS6, I wonder how much can be saved by doing your own maintainence. I fully apreciate that they are a highly specialised vehicle and require specialist servicing.

I am not thinking of engine / gearbox work, but replacing discs / pads as these seem to be the most consumable and expensive of items, yet, they should be, in reality no more difficult to change than any other vehicle, so long as you have basic skills and the correct tools.

Have any of you considered doing your own work, if so how much did you save - was it worth the effort / skinned knuckles?

I'm just a tight Northener really

[ninjazx6r]

Speed has its price my friend!

If your contemplating owning a RS6 then also be sensible enough to realise trying to save yourself a couple of squid everytime its due a service will only back fire!

Me thinks your buying the wrong car.

[Madmass]

ninjazx6r

thanks for the reply, but I am quite prepared to pay the cost of servicing at main dealers, been there and done that before with previous Audi, Subaru and Volvo.

What I was trying to ascertain was, if there were any savings to be made by doing the brake pad / disc changes yourself. If the discs need changing every 10 - 15000 miles with normal use and they cost circa £900, I wonder what proportion of that cost is labour and if it is really a necessity for a dealer to do the job, when it is a relatively simple task.

Reading bettween the lines on the forum the achilles heel of the RS6 is the brake system, I drive reasonably quickly in my own vehicles - I have no problem with paying for regular maintainence, what I object to is paying through the nose for a job I can do myself quite capably - and safely.

[bogie]

Audi labour rates are on the high side - like £70-95 p.h so you can save the labour

you can also pick up consumables like discs/pads off ebay etc much cheaper than what the dealers charge

so I imagine say on a full disc/pad change say at a dealer will be £1800 you could knock £500-600 off that buy doing yourself

As for the engine - well theres over 9L of oil to change and 8 plugs so its never going to be cheap....but you can buy better oil than what Audi put in for £35 gallon (so £70 for a change) ...whereas Audi like to charge like £15 a litre for the stuff.

I guess if it was out of manufacturer warranty then oil changes you could do yourself - Id leave the cambelt to the pros though

problem is, most people dont want to own one of these cars out of warranty so keeping the book stamped at a dealer or good specialist is a must.......

[SteveH]

The main bulk of the price for brake change is the parts, unfortunately up until recently the only source was Official Audi Dealer Parts so thay could practically command there own price. I believe that its only within the last few months that VAG-Parts.com have started to offer a supply.

For example last i checked, Audi parts price for full set of front & rear standard vented discs was £1,235 and £309 for pads all round so £1544 + Labour, if you compare with VAGparts, they offer full setup for £1076. Labour is charged at an hour for the front and an hour for rear, in total your looking at about £700 saving in total by getting identical OEM parts but from a different source and fitting yourself. Thats a no brainer to me if your capable of doing it yourself after the car is out of its original 3 year warranty, as the extended warranties (even Audi) have reduced cover relative to the brakes.

[SteveH]

Oh, forgot to say that you wont regret getting an RS6, its worth every penny and more!! Increasingly more independants are providing high quality specialist RS service for greatly reduced prices like MRC and APS. This site offers some invaluable advice from expensive lessons learnt!

[AntS4]

Hi Madmass...

Not wanting to put you off RS6 by any stretch but the V8 engined S4 is a cracking motor and the servicing costs are relatively cheap and only come out slighly more than lets say an A4 diesel. I owned a 2003 S4 Avant for two years and at 20K mile service intervals, brakes that last 50K miles and cam belts much later than on the RS6 it needs to be taken into consideration. I have kids and would recommend an Avant in either case, whether it be RS6 or S4. The amount of space taken up by buggies, bags of toys, nappies etc... always suprises me and whilst the boot on both the S4 and RS6 saloons are big the extra you get from an Avant is always worth the premium in my opinion.

But then again the peformance of the RS6 is in a different league... if I were in your position my head would tell me S4 Avant, but my heart would be saying RS6... Good Luck!

[Madmass]

Thanks for the helpful replies so far, your knowledge puts things into perspective, but a car like this for me will be bought "from the heart" not the head.



Ants4

thanks, I know exactly where you are coming from re space, but the V70 D5 is a keeper and I also have a Disco for ferrying the kids and acoutriments of family life about.

My heart is set on an RS6, I'm just waiting for the executors of my late fathers estate to pull their fingers out, then I will be looking seriously at saloons. The 6 will be a third vehicle for use as and when it begs to be driven (probably all the time)

[Frosty]

Not sure about the RS6, as I am new here too, but I know from way back that for the RS2 it was cheaper to get brake parts etc from Porsche rather than Audi.

Is this possible with any of the RS6 components??