C5 RS6 - Early ownership expectations

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Robinsr10
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Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2021 6:58 pm

C5 RS6 - Early ownership expectations

Post by Robinsr10 » Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:32 pm

Hi all,

I hope you are all well!

I was hoping my first post on here would be celebrating the purchase of my first RS6 and asking more specific questions relating to my own car. Unfortunately, despite putting down a deposit on a car, it was sold to someone else. On the upside, it gives me more time to get some advice on the maintenance and other bits and bobs that would be good to do early days into ownership.

I had already come to terms with the fact the brakes will be an expensive venture, looking on Euro Car Parts the options seem very limited. I wouldn't want to skimp on them but also not pay through the nose if there were any alternatives. A quote I remember reading on a forum on here is something along the lines of "put aside a 3rd of the price of the car to put towards maintenance"!

The last thing I would want is to leave anything and cause problems early on in owning the car. What would people suggest doing as preventative measures after taking ownership?

Cheers

Ross

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IchBautAuto
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Posts: 618
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:23 pm
Location: Australia

Re: C5 RS6 - Early ownership expectations

Post by IchBautAuto » Sat Feb 06, 2021 1:27 am

Reading through this forum, you'll find a great many experiences and most different. There are already lists on here of common failure points which a bit of reading will unearth. That does not automatically mean that you will have a failure in any of these items, just that they are more common on the list. Read the forum posts and make a list, check each item and thats the most comprehensive list you'll find.

My experience is that you may actually have no fault codes but you may have problems all over the place due to dumb system / item failures, poor mechanical work, rough treatment of components and a whole list of invisible things. These cars also draw a great many tryo mechanics, I have two RS cars and they suffered far more from well intentioned owners than my two vanilla Audi that didn't attract all the sticky fingers.

They are approaching 20 years old and in UK will have some or more of the signs of winter driving in most cases. Parts are becoming less available so those two comments should paint a picture of the future. Mine is my DD (which is mostly long distances) but I have fall backs should I need to have it off the road. Absolutely nothing is worse than having to jump into a repair without the time for a bit of thought.

So, other than spending the purchase price again on some needed parts plus a few spare major assemblies and a bit of stock for a rainy day, my downsides were, 3 months to get it all sorted to register which included a full suspension replacement and some issues with the airbox alignment, one example of limp mode that has never re-occurred and no fault has been conclusively identified.

Otherwise it has performed faultlessly, like a new car except better. I think that my experience has been fantastic but in line with all my Audi. Some others have had nothing but trouble and there are a great many of those too. In the end, no matter what anyone says, your experience will be what it will be. If you are going to restore it, the world is your oyster. If you are expecting new car performance and reliability, choose very very carefully remembering that will still not ensure a dream run.
C5 RS6, Milltek and Wagners: B5 RS4 450 + HP: A4 1.8 GP TQS original: 1963 UNIMOG 404:

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