RS6 C6 – Preventive maintenance tips?

[lyly19]

Hi everyone,
I’m considering buying a 2009 Audi RS6 C6 and would like to hear from current owners: what preventive maintenance would you recommend to avoid unexpected issues or costly repairs down the road?
I’ve read about potential problems with the automatic transmission and cooling system, but I’d love to know from your real experiences which areas are most critical to keep an eye on.

[IanH755]

The biggest issue by now is a mixture of parts becoming difficult to buy, and age causing plastic to get brittle, seals to degrade, rust to start etc so basically all the issues you'd get with any 15+ year old car.

There's a few common issues by now - oil pump seal leaking - coolant lines corroding - wheel bearings clicking - but the rest is seemingly random by now. The gearbox is very solid, the suspension is fairly solid, most of the body work is fairly solid, the engine (if running Stage 2 or lower) is fairly solid etc - its all the random little things which are failing due to age which will catch you out.

Obviously thats all just my opinion, others may agree/disagree with me but I think thats a fair list I've given.

As for preventative Maint, due to the cars age now I prefer to go overboard on maint - so oil changes more often than you'd imagine so say 5k miles (for me, others may say longer), gearbox service (inc oil) every 2 years, general service every 10k miles which replaces filters with a much bigger service every 20k miles inc spark plugs, other fluids every 2 years (diffs, coolant, brake etc) and after doing all that, it'll keep the engine/GB/Diff etc fairly healthy.

Hope that helps.

[TS811]

I'm in the same boat, have been contemplating swapping from my B7 RS4 to a C6 RS6 which just suits my driving style better (both being absolutely exceptional in their own ways).

While I can handle the RS4 maintenance, I'm still not in a position to be able to justify the RS6 costs. Everything seems to be an engine-out even for the slightest issue. That's not the ownership experience I'm looking for in a daily driver.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend viewing the REPerformance UK YouTube channel who are experts in this specific model.

[Jim Haseltine]

Some (not all) jobs can be done with the engine in place but are far easier with it taken out. For a DiYer it's a balancing thing - with the engine in place the task will be awkward, painful, frustrating and will take all day whereas with the engine out it'll be straight forward and take an hour plus a day to take the engine out and a day and a half to put it back and refill the fluids. And that's not to mention the equipment and serious amount of space you need - from the front pulley to the end of the downpipes has to be the best part of 8ft.
The time/awkwardness bit is also why an engine out job expands to replacing other things that don't strictly need it - you get them done because you can get to them and you don't want to have to pull the engine out again inside a few months.

[IanH755]

Yeap, whilst I love REP their last few videos have seemed a little bit "the sky is falling" for the normal person, when in reality his understandable concern is that, with parts taking longer and longer to get, cars that are waiting for parts will block his ramps up, reducing the quick turnaround of cars his business needs for profit, making it a sensible business decision.

However with people possibly being unable to understand that Rickie's purely talking from a business case, rather than as someone buying an RS6 (even he said he'd buy the TDC car etc), I'm expecting videos like that to probably scare off some potential owners, which is a shame.

[Jim Haseltine]

a sensible business decision.

Not only do REP have to warranty their work they've also got a reputation of doing things properly to uphold so when some random clip breaks during a job they have to ensure it's replaced whereas a DiYer can leave it to be fixed at some point in the future - or not a all.

[TS811]

Yes unfortunately it is sort of putting me off going for the C6 RS6. Would really love to own one though.

Is anyone still daily driving there's? How is that going? Could a well-sorted example (with recent engine-out, oil pump seal repair, etc.) be trouble-free for a few years?

[Jim Haseltine]

After 9 years, mine is still my daily - although now I'm retired it's mostly just short local journeys. Today, I covered some 16 miles instead of the daily 60 mile round trip commute I used to do.
Yes, they can be trouble free for a while, other than a split DRC pipe which also revealled a broken rear spring in my first week of ownership mine had nothing other than common maintenance inside the first two years. That was the point where my tool kit got itchy fingers and I went into things like the coolant pipe replacement.
Having said that, I also spent 6 years and a lot of time and money trying to deal with prodigious oil consumption and intermittent smoke screens which at times were enough to make me doubt the wisdom of having bought the car.